


Home of Our Making

by missmissa85



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant to 8x04, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Teeny bit of angst, last two episodes shake out a little differently, or a lot differently, show canon, the north remembers Margaery Tyrell, with some scraps of book canon i've picked up from reading too much fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2020-03-09 14:49:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 52,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18919201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmissa85/pseuds/missmissa85
Summary: Every five years, the kings and lords of Westeros meet to keep the peace and strengthen their bonds. While Gendry goes to King’s Landing, Arya goes to be the Stark in Winterfell. Along with their children, they recount their life together to friends and family old and new.Multiple-POV but Gendrya-centric.





	1. Queens

**Author's Note:**

> When Arya first said, "What's west of Westeros?" in season 6, I literally thought, 'this is probably something that's better developed in the books.' It didn't make much sense in regards to where Arya was at that moment and it certainly doesn't make sense after the choices Arya makes in seasons 7 and 8. This story is set about 15 years after the fall of King's Landing and will contain flashbacks to retell the last two episodes, though frankly there won't be much of that in this first chapter.

Summer snows dusted the road to Winterfell as they drew closer.The last time she was in her childhood home, she had nearly died giving birth to the child happily tossing handfuls of snow into the air.Arya took a deep breath and sighed deeply, shaking her head.There had been a time in her life that she could not see a future beyond the next name on her list.Before that even, she actively railed against marrying a lord and having his children.Of course, the future envisioned by her parents did not include her carrying a sword, wearing breeches, and riding a horse astride.

“Momma, can I announce you at the gate?” Young Davos asked, flashing his gray eyes up at her excitedly.

Baratheon blood might have been strong, but Arya’s was stronger.Her youngest child was a steely-eyed, brown-haired, wildling just as Arya had been at his age.

“Have you ever known me to be announced at home?” she asked, the humor just under the surface of her voice.

“But we’re not at home,” the six-year-old stated factually.“You should be announced.”

“This used to be my home, too.Remember?”

“But you haven’t been back in…a lot of years,” Davos replied, clearly having forgotten the details of his previous conversations with his mother about Winterfell.“Maybe they’ve forgotten what you look like.”

“They won’t have forgotten.”

“They forgot when you were in Essos.”

Arya narrowed her gaze at her six-year-old.She could tell he was grinning even from the back of his head of dark, unruly hair.“You remember I travelled in Essos, but you can’t remember how long it’s been since I was at Winterfell?”

The little boy shot a grin at her over his shoulder before taking off as a run toward the gate.

“Davos!” she hollered, spurring her horse on after him.

The little boy skidded to a stop in front of two flabby, easily startled guards and spread his arms wide. “Announcing the arrival of Arya Stark, Queen of the Stormlands, Mother of _Me_ …and Shireen and Sandor,” he added quickly, “the North Wind, the Night Slayer, Avenger of the Red Wedding, The She-Wolf of Winterfell, The Queenslayer. The-the-the Sister of the Lady of Winterfell.”

Arya snorted in a less than ladylike manner as the older of the guards sneered and said, “Piss off.”

“Fuck off,” Davos replied, and Arya couldn’t contain her laughter as she dismounted her horse.

“Young man, who taught you how to swear like that?”

The guards nearly jumped out of their skin at the sudden appearance of their queen. 

“My momma,” Davos said, his chin in the air.

“His father helped. A lot,” Arya told her sister, suppressing a smile.

The Queen in the North looked between her two guards and said, “Well, you heard the young prince: fuck off.”

One of the guards stared at his queen slack-jawed before the other one pushed him out of the gateway.Davos took their absence as his chance to jump into his aunt’s arms.Sansa grunted with the effort of holding him up and said, “You are far too big for this,” before kissing his temple and placing him back on solid ground.

Sansa opened her arms and Arya embraced her sister. Sansa took Arya’s face in her hands and said, “You never change, you know that?”

“You’re one to talk,” Arya replied. Her sister was still as beautiful as the day Arya had returned to Winterfell from Braavos.

“Are Ned and Brian here?” Davos piped up, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Well, of course they are,” Sansa replied. “They’re probably in the training yard with their father and—do you even know where you’re going?” she called after the boy as he took off toward the interior of the castle castle grounds.

“He’ll find them. He’s very good at sniffing out trouble.”

Sansa gasped in mock surprise. “I wonder how he could possibly have come to behave in such a way?”

“No idea,” Arya replied flatly before being unable to contain her laughter.

Sansa followed suit and laughed as she wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders.The Queen in the North had a reputation for being cold and it was in many ways well-deserved.She was forged in a brutal winter that brought with it betrayal and death itself.But, as the Wildlings said, Sansa was also ‘kissed by fire.’To those she loved and trusted, Sansa was warm and impassioned.Arya often thought about how her sister has once said she was the strongest person she knew.Arya felt the same way about Sansa; her strength merely displayed itself in different ways.Sansa was called the Queen in the North, but she did, in fact, essentially rule the Westerlands, the Riverlands, and the Vale as well.Arya knew it took an enormous amount of strength to shoulder that responsibility and continue to smile warmly and genuinely.

“Lady Manderly sent word that you were coming and that you refused her invitation to stay with her,” Sansa said as they walked along.

Arya groaned.“Lady Manderly used to call me Arya Horseface behind my back, but loud enough for me to hear.I was not going to take her hospitality that was only offered out of traditional politeness.”

Sansa chuckled slightly, but shook her head and stopped to look at her sister.“Arya, I know Lady Manderly was unkind when we were children, but she has no other family left and is unlikely to marry at her age.You, on the other hand, are a queen, married to a handsome king—”

“Bastard blacksmith,” Arya interjected.

“Bastard blacksmith _king_ ,” Sansa continued, undaunted, “and you have three beautiful children.One thing you will never be is lonely.And, by all the measures of the society we were raised in, you have been far more successful than Lady Manderly.”

“You’re saying that because I fucked a king and gave him three children, I would have been showing Lady Manderly kindness to accept her invitation?” Arya asked incredulously.

“Yes, well, actually it’s because you married the king first.Although I suppose you married him _between_ the fucking and the children.”

Arya rolled her eyes.“You’re one to talk.”

Sansa raised her chin imperiously, but there was a smirk on her lips.“I have no idea what you could possibly mean.”

They rounded the corner of the castle and stopped at the edge of the training yard.Arya’s breath caught in her throat.Crouched next to her own son, imparting his knowledge with a training bow, was a young man with curly auburn hair, bright blue eyes, and a mouth twisted into a perpetual mischievous smirk. She hadn’t seen her nephew since Davos’ birth six years earlier.In that time, Young Ned had grown into the very image of Robb Stark.

“It hurts me sometimes, too,” Sansa whispered, squeezing her hand.

“Lady Arya!”

This came from Podrick Payne—Ser Podrick Payne—Winterfell’s master-at-arms from his place at eight-year-old Brian’s side.Despite the gray hairs that dotted his head, Arya still found him boyish.It was likely due to the pudginess he retained from his youth and had added to in the years since and the grin that no one who lived through two major sieges should ever be able to display.

“She’s not a lady,” brown-haired and brown-eyed Brian said.“She’s just Aunt Arya.”

Arya smiled and replied, “Ser Podrick has earned the right to call me whatever he likes.”

“I have?” Podrick asked, eyebrows arched upward.“How, may I ask?”

“You’re not dead for a start,” Arya replied with a shrug.

Brian laughed and dropped his bow before bounding across the yard to embrace his aunt.A few feet away, Davos gasped loudly and said, “Brian, you can’t leave your bow there.The ghosts will come and box your ears!”

All eyes slowly turned toward Arya for a few tense moments before Young Ned burst out laughing in a way that reminded her even more of her long-dead brother.

“Gods, Aunt Arya, I’m glad you’re not our master-at-arms,” he said, grasping Davos from beneath his arms and hoisting the boy onto his shoulders.“Go on, Bri, pick up your bow.”

The younger boy was quickly complied as Sansa turned to Podrick and said, “Where has my husband gone off to?”

“Master Tristran thought it best to take Little Theon inside after the lad fell asleep leaning against that stump,” Podrick explained.“Fetching someone’s stray arrows was apparently very tiring.”

Brian’s face scrunched up angrily.He opened his mouth to argue, but Podrick continued, “It’s not his fault, really.I haven’t got much knowledge to impart when it comes to archery.”

“Can you teach me, Aunt Arya?” Brian asked, his brown eyes pleading.“They say you’re better than any of your brothers were.”

Arya leaned down to be at eye-level with her younger nephew and said, “In the whole day we have together before you lot head down to King’s Landing, I will try to make an archer out of you.”

Brian flashed a smile before his mother cleared her throat.“I do believe for right now, though, you boys both have other lessons to attend to,” she told them.

Brian groaned, but went about cleaning the yard with Podrick’s instruction. 

Davos looked down at his mother from his perch on his cousin’s shoulders and said, “Do I have to go to lessons, too?”

“Oh, I’ve got a good story I can read you about Bran the Builder,” Young Ned said, bearing the boy on his shoulders toward the castle.

“The one who built the wall that fell down?” Davos asked, unimpressed.

“It didn’t fall, it was pushed,” Ned corrected, heading toward the castle.“Bran the Builder also raised Storm’s End.”

“Really?” Davos asked excitedly.

  
“Yes, really,” Ned replied as they disappeared into Winterfell’s corridors.

“Well, dear sister, would you care for a bath?”

“Actually, I would,” Arya replied.

“It really is a brave new world,” Sansa laughed.

* * *

Arya sighed as she sank into the copper tub in her childhood bedroom.She’d shooed the maids before she undressed and sank into the warm water.This part of Winterfell was silent apart from the crackling in the fire.Sansa was right about one thing: Arya was definitely not lonely in her life.She was not used to quiet.She had made her home in a place called the Storm Lands, and they were aptly named.Rain fell hard on the keep from above and the sea whipped the walls from below.The children chased each other through the halls of the keep with wooden swords.And there was always the sound of clanging metal from the forge that echoed through the grounds.Gendry had never stopped working in the forge, and it was a good thing too.The Storm Landshad become known for their metal crafts in the years since the Breaking, and it was because of the example of their king.

Arya’s eyes drifted to the weapon mounted above the fireplace.It was still separated as it had been when she dropped it on Winterfell’s battlements.The wood on one side was crushed, preventing it from ever being a whole spear again, but the dragon glass tip and blade her husband had forged for her were still intact.It was the first weapon he made for her.It was not the last.

She tensed as the door opened, but immediately relaxed again when she saw it was her sister carrying a bucket and a towel.

“May I wash your hair?” Sansa asked.

“Why?”

“Because it’s filthy,” Sansa replied, setting the bucket down by the tub and pulling a stool over to sit behind Arya’s head.

Arya didn’t protest as Sansa pulled the braid from her shoulder and began to run her fingers through it.

“I’m surprised you’ve let it grow this long,” Sansa commented, scooping the water out of the bucket and onto Arya’s hair.“Does Gendry prefer it this way?”

“No, actually,” Arya replied, relaxing into the feeling of Sansa’s fingers in her scalp.“He wishes I would cut it short like it was when we were young.But having it longer is more practical in many ways.I can pull it back and it doesn’t fall in my eyes.”

“I never thought about it that way.”

“You’re not a fighter, you have no reason to think like that.”

“I fight in other ways,” Sansa said, running her soapy hands down the length of Arya’s hair.

“Mother never did this for us,” Arya said quietly.“It was always a maid, or our septa.Why are you doing this?”

“Arya, look at me,” Sansa said gently.

The younger sister turned to face the older.Everyone had always told them that Sansa was a beauty like their mother had been.While Sansa did indeed have their mother’s beauty and warmth, there was an edge in her eyes that their mother never had.That edge was forged in King’s Landing, the Vale, and even in their own home.That edge kept Sansa alive through wars and winters that killed seemingly greater men.And yet, Sansa was set on a stool wearing a simple woolen skirt, a knitted shawl, and her shirt sleeves rolled up past her elbows.It was easy to see why the people loved her, but she was not the image of their mother.Not really.

Sansa put her arms on the edge of the tub and set her chin atop them to be eye level with Arya.“Our mother was a great lady, but we are not ladies,” she said with a small smile.“We are queens.Queens must be willing to get their hands dirty.”

“Your comparing the men I’ve killed to you washing my hair?” Arya asked incredulously.

Sansa smiled as she sat back up.“Clearly you’ve not looked at your hair lately.”

Arya guffawed as she twisted back around in the tub to allow Sansa better access.The sound of the fire filled the silence as the redhead continued her ministrations.

“I wanted practice washing hair this long,” Sansa said finally.“I haven’t had much.Not yet, anyway.”

Arya blinked, and a smile crossed her face as realization dawned on her.“You think you’ll have a girl this time?” she asked.  
“Mmhmm,” Sansa replied, and Arya could hear the smile in her voice.“I haven’t been as ill this time.You weren’t as ill with Shireen, were you?”

“No, but everything was different with Shireen.We weren’t even in Westeros.I was living and eating differently.”

“I remember,” Sansa grumbled.“All you and Gendry said was that you were going west, and you came back nearly two years later with a few more scars and a baby girl.”

“Sansa, you gave me this lecture a decade ago.”

“You _both_ left your land and took your only heir with you.”

“Sandor was barely three.We weren’t going to leave him.And Bella and Ser Davos had everything well in hand.”

“There was nearly a rebellion in the Stormlands.I was preparing troops to send down there.And everyone knows how Bella Baratheon ultimately put down that rebellion before it came to fighting.”

Arya smirked.“My good-sister has her own set of talents.”

Sansa huffed as she started to braid her sister’s hair.“Did Gendry really find her in a brothel?”

“Yes,” Arya replied, chuckling.

“That must have been an interesting story.”

“It is.But Gendry has to be _extremely_ drunk before he can tell it.”

“Then I shall have to enlist Tyrion’s help to get it out of him when we go to King’s Landing,” Sansa said slyly.

Arya rolled her eyes and decided to change the subject.“Have you thought of names for your girl?You already named Brian after Ser Brienne.”

“She didn’t want me to do that,” Sansa said, beginning a braid on the other side of Arya’s head.“I suggested Talisa, after Tristran’s sister, but he told me the Volantenes don’t name their children after their dead.”

“He didn’t object to Ned and Theon’s names,” Arya pointed out.

“No, but those were _my_ dead.Talisa was his.Other than Brienne, I’ve only met one other person in the entire North that remembers what she looked like.Tristran has done nothing but honor our family since he climbed across the hole in our wall.I can honor him in this.”

“Then what else have you discussed for names?” Arya asked, brow crinkling at the design her sister was braiding into her hair.

“I dismissed Catelyn almost as soon as the notion entered my mind,” Sansa explained.“There are days I wish I hadn’t named Ned after father.It just makes me miss him all over again.I also thought about Lyanna; not so much for our aunt, but for Lyanna Mormont.”

“Naming a child after a giant slayer might be a bit intimidating.”

“Maybe,” Sansa agreed.“I think I’ve almost decided on Margaery, though.”

“Who in seven hells is Margaery?”

“Margaery Tyrell,” Sansa explained.“After the Blackwater, Margaery helped me in King’s Landing.More than anyone, she helped me become someone who could be a good queen.She could smile, and scheme, and manipulate others to her advantage, but beneath it all, she was loyal to her family, and she cared about all the people.She really did.”

“I didn’t know she meant that much to you.”

“She was one of those people that I didn’t realize how much she meant to me until she was gone.”

“I know what that’s like,” Arya mused, picturing a scared face.

Sansa tied off Arya’s hair and handed her a towel.“Is that why you named your firstborn Sandor?"

“No,” Arya answered easily as she stepped out of the tub and wrapped the towel around herself.“I did that because it would annoy him.”

Sansa tilted her head and fixed her little sister with a stare that reminded her greatly of their mother.

Arya sighed.“It was something he said when we had left Winterfell for King’s Landing.”

...

_“You broke the little twat’s heart, didn’t you?”_

_Arya rolled her eyes, annoyed at The Hound’s need to break the silence between them. “What are you talking about?” she bit back, though she knew precisely what he meant._

_“Your pet blacksmith,” he elaborated. “Even though he’s a fucking lord now, he’ll always be your pet blacksmith.”_

_“He’s not my anything.”_

_“Bullshit. You know he was going to find you when the dragon bitch threw a castle at him. You got a magic cunt as well as a magic knife?”_

_Arya felt like tossing the catspaw into his throat and being done with him, but she decided to look resolutely ahead instead._

_“What did the little shit do when he found you?”_

_Arya sighed, resigned to answer the man’s questions. “He asked me to be Lady of Storm’s End.”_

_“You must have a magic cunt,” the Hound muttered before clearly continuing, “You turned him down then?”_

_“I’m no lady. I never have been.”_

_The Hound reined in his horse and stopped to consider her. Arya found she could not bear his eyes boring holes into her back and turned her horse to face him. “What?” she asked tersely._

_“Why did you come back up here?”_

_“I needed to finish my list,” she replied._

_“The names on your list are all in King’s Landing.They never fucking leave King’s Landing,” The Hound reminded her. “Why did you come back_ up here _?”_

_Arya hated that he was throwing her own words back at her. He wasn’t supposed to be that smart._

_“I...I don’t know.” It was a lie._

_“You may be a cold little bitch, but you’re a Stark bitch. You’ve always been a Stark. You’ll always be a Stark. You don’t know what it’s like to bow and scrape and serve.”_

_“We bowed to the King,” Arya protested._

_“Oh, aye. And how many times did you have to do that? Once? Your father may have been called Warden of the North, but he was a king up here and all but name. Everyone you ever knew as a pup had to bow to you.”_

_“What is your fucking point, Clegane?”_

_“That flea-bitten fuck of yours never had any of that.All a lord is to him is some high cunt that can have whatever he wants. And what he wanted was you.”_

_“He wants a lady,” Arya said, looking away toward the snowy fields._

_“No. He’s a fucking fool who wants you.”_

_The Hound stuck his horse with his heels and started to move forward past her. “If you wanted a fuck before the battle, you should have found someone that wasn’t already in love with you. I hear that Podrick has a magic cock to go with your magic cunt.”_

_Arya thought about stabbing him as he rode past. But he was right, and she couldn’t find it in herself to argue as she turned her horse and followed him._

... 

Sansa smiled fondly as Arya dressed herself.“For someone who claimed to hate people as much as he did, he certainly could read them almost better than anyone.”

“Aye.He did,” Arya agreed.


	2. Strong and Gentle and Brave

 

Arya remembered Tormund Giantsbane, the ginger wildling, often said that Jon was “pretty.” She never understood how a man could be pretty until she met the man who would become Sansa’s husband. Tristran Maegyr was only slightly taller than the Queen in the North, and he cut a lithe figure compared to the broad shoulders of the Northmen Arya had grown up with.His oval face was comprised of wide brown eyes, a straight nose, a cleft chin, and lips that would have seemed sultrily pouty had his face not been so often split by a smile. If Talisa had only looked like Tristran without a beard, Arya could understand why Robb would have broken faith with the Freys for her.

“Arya,” he greeted warmly, offering her goblet of wine. “How fares your husband?”

She arched an eyebrow at him imperiously even as she took his offering. “No inquiries into my own well-being?”

“Clearly you are well, and you know I prefer your husband’s company to yours.”

“Oh?”

“Certainly. Your husband has never broken my nose simply because I bested him at swordplay.”

Arya snorted into her goblet as Tristran laughed, settling himself into a chair across from her at the high table.

“You could easily beat Gendry in a sword fight,” she commented, sipping her wine. “He’s still shit with a sword.”

“You haven’t taught him in all your years together?”

“You cannot teach a bull to dance.”

Tristran laughed loudly and the sound startled the maids as they set the table for the family’s dinner. “Thank you for coming, Arya,” he said, catching his breath. “All the boys wanted to go to King’s Landing this time, and ‘there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.’”

Arya regarded him as she sat back in her chair.“You’ve certainly adapted to our Northern ways.”

“It snows in the summer up here.It’s not as though I had a choice,” he joked.“Although I don’t think I would have ever been allowed to marry the North’s beloved Red Wolf had I not bested the Nightslayer.”

Arya rolled her eyes, remembering the challenge she issued to the man presently across the table from her.He had been practicing in the training yard despite the jeers of the northmen.She had recognized the steps of the Braavosi water dance, and she had mostly challenged him to see if she still recalled all of her training.She did, but so did Tristran, and she resorted to tripping him so he landed flat on his back.He looked as though all the air had escaped from him, but before he could place Needle’s tip at his throat, he popped up and pressed the flat of his dagger against her belly.With a smirk, he asked if she would yield.She broke his nose instead.

“You had me at a disadvantage,” Arya lied.

Tristran shook his head.“You know the Wildlings believe pregnancy makes women even more fierce in battle.That’s why they fuck before they fight.Not that you would know anything about that,” he said, giving her a knowing look over his goblet.

“Gods, Sansa just tells everybody everything, doesn’t she?”

“You cannot blame my wife for this.You know how words just fall out of your husband’s mouth when he drinks too much.”

Arya heaved a great sigh.“I am aware.”

The door to the great hall opened and the workers from the keep began filling the lower tables.The kitchen staff began distributing food among the them as Tristran moved to his place at the left of the intricately carved chair.

“Momma! Momma! I had the best dream,” Davos said, rushing up to her and almost making her spill her wine.

“You were asleep?” Arya asked, suddenly worried her son might be awake all through the night.

“Apparently some small persons don’t find Bran the Builder as interesting as I do,” Ned explained, placing his cousin in the large chair next to Arya and taking his place on the other side of it.

Brian came in holding the hand of four-year-old Theon.The younger boy looked at Arya with trepidation in his Stark gray eyes and moved closer to his brother’s side.

“Theon, this is Aunt Arya,” Brian told him in an exasperated tone.“You’ve met her before.”

“Do _you_ have any memories from when you were two-years-old,” Ned asked sternly.

“I might!” Brian called back from over his shoulder as he led his brother to their seats next to their father.

Sansa entered the hall last.Her hair was neatly pinned behind her shoulders and she had exchanged the rough shawl for a gray, embroidered overcoat with bell sleeves.The people in the hall stood at the presence of their queen.Davos, whose feet could not touch the ground from his seat, stood in his chair, making him taller than his mother.Arya saw Sansa shaking slightly with the effort to not laugh as she passed them on the way to her seat.

When the queen was seated, the rest of the hall sat as well and began passing pitchers of wine and ale as the servants finished distributing the food to the lower tables.Davos watched the action with great interest and excitedly said, “Momma, they serve the small folk first like we do in Storm’s End!”

“Where do you think I stole the idea from?” Sansa whispered to him conspiratorially.

“Papa says that we are here for the people, they are not here for us,” Davos quoted, his chin stuck up in the air dramatically. 

“Oh, he stole that from me,” Sansa said coolly, settling back in her chair.

Arya glared at her sister. “Tell him who _you_ stole it from.”

“I stole it from no one,” Sansa replied, still a picture of calm composure. “It was taught to me by our father.”

Davos’ eyes widened. “Papa met Grandfather once,” he announced as though his father had met Durran himself.“Said he was the first high-born to ever treat him with respect.”

Ned tore a piece of bread from the platter set before him and asked, “Was Aunt Arya the second?”

Arya snorted into her wine and found herself giggling.She could feel Sansa’s raised eyebrow as she caught her breath and said, “Oh, definitely not.”

Conversation at the high table died down as they all went about the business of eating.After the meat was served, Davos’ lips began to twist and his brow furrowed deeply.

“Momma?”

“Yes, sweetling?”

“Would Grandfather have let you marry Papa?”

Arya froze, her fork halfway to her mouth.In truth, it was a question she had asked herself many times.She always gave herself the same answer before she could linger on the ‘what-ifs.’“It doesn’t matter,” she said, letting the fork fall to the plate.“If my father had lived, I probably would have never met your father.”

“Yes.”

Arya looked at her sister, who was smiling softly, her eyes shining.“Yes to what?” Arya asked.

“Yes, Father would have approved of Gendry,” Sansa explained.

Ned narrowed his gaze toward his mother.“You really think so?” he asked, eyebrows arched upward.“No offense, but Uncle Gendry was a low-born bastard and Aunt Arya was the daughter of the Warden of the North.It’s hardly a match anyone would approve of today, much less before the Breaking of the Kingdoms.”

“Well, if Father and Mother had lived, and your Aunt Arya had wanted Gendry, she would have had him, anyone else’s opinion be damned.In fact, that is what she did.”

“What does that mean?” Davos asked around a mouthful of potatoes.

Arya glared at her sister, her lips pressed into a thin line.She wasn’t ashamed, but neither did she relish the idea of explaining to her six-year-old how she’d pushed his father onto a pile of grain sacks and given him her maidenhead without a care to what her sister or brothers would have thought.

Sansa smiled at Arya a little too sweetly, but looked at Davos and replied, “I only mean that your mother loved your father before he had a title, or a kingdom.And I believe our father would have approved of Gendry as a man because of something he said when I was a stupid little girl.”

Brian’s head popped up from his plate.“Mother, you were never stupid,” he insisted.

“I was, actually,” Sansa said gently.“I wanted a prince, like the maidens in the songs, but Father wanted to find me someone else: someone strong, and gentle, and brave.Do you remember?” 

Arya smiled.It was probably one of the last conversations they had had with their father.“I remember.”

Sansa looked directly at her firstborn and said, “There are few men in the world as strong, and gentle, and brave as your uncle.And our Father would have loved him as fiercely as any of his own sons.I was a little jealous you had that before I did.Although, I didn’t have to wait long.”

Sansa squeezed her husband’s hand and Tristran pressed a kiss to her temple.Arya smirked at the sweetness of the scene and said, “Yes, I believe you had to wait a wholesix hours.”

She laughed as she felt her sister’s sharp kick to her shin.Tristran blushed deeply, and Brian’s face twisted in confusion as he looked between the adults at the table.Ned choked and coughed and turned slightly green.Davos looked around and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“Tell you later, sweetling,” Arya promised, “much, much later.”

* * *

 

“Momma, I didn’t tell you about my dream,” Davos said as Arya tucked the furs underneath her son’s chin.

“Well, then, I suppose you can tell me the story tonight,” she replied, settling herself onto the edge of the bed that once belonged to her brother, Jon.

“I was a wolf,” Davos began.

“How do you know?” 

“I could see my paws.I was running in the snow, more snow than there is here.I was looking for someone, and I found a big, red man.”

“A red man?”

“Well, he wasn’t red all over,” the boy explained.“He had a lot of red hair on his head, like Aunt Sansa’s, but wilder.And he was big, almost like a giant.”

“Oh,” Arya said, recognizing her son’s description of Tormund Giantsbane, a man young Davos had not met since his first name day.“Was he the person you were looking for?”

Davos shook his head.“I didn’t mind him but he was not mine, so I kept sniffing fo him.”

“Did you find him?”

Davos nodded.“He was a smaller man, black hair and dark eyes.And he seemed so sad.I wanted to make him not sad, and he smiled when I licked his face.He called me Ghost.And then Ned woke me up for supper,” the little boy finished with a sneer.

It had been a long time since Arya had reclaimed her identity and left the House of Black and White behind, but she was grateful for the training they had given her as it allowed her to keep her features calm and collected as she pressed a kiss to her son’s forehead.“It was just a dream,” she lied.“Now go to sleep and have some more.”

Davos sighed dramatically, but obediently closed his eyes, as Arya rose and took the candle from the side table.

It was not just a dream.Bran once told her that he used to have dreams he was inside of Summer.Arya had had one such dream herself when she was in the Riverlands on her way to kill Cersei.

* * *

 

_She was a tiny thing, no bigger than her girl.She was marking her place in the clearing.She wouldn’t provide much meat for the pack, but she was alone; an easy target.The pack was starting to circle when a bigger target blundered into the clearing, making enough noise to scare off every sort of prey.But they were not prey._

_“What in seven hells are you doing out here?” he demanded of the girl._

_“I’m takin’ a piss.Is that alright with you, milord?” she asked, mocking him._

_His mouth opened and quickly shut as her pack revealed themselves from the trees.The man’s eyes, bluer than any water, darted between the wolves and he drew a knife from his belt.The girl whimpered and clutched at his waist.The girl would be easy, the man would not._

_She pawed out of the trees, certain of her victory and snarled.Fear had been rolling off of them since her pack revealed themselves, but it changed when the man’s eyes found her form.The fear from him disappeared almost instantly.He even put down the knife all men depended upon._

_“Gendry, what are you doing?It’s a monster!” the girl cried from behind him._

_“She’s not a monster.She’s a dire wolf,” the Gendry said, calm as the scent rolling off of him._

_He started to approach her and she bared her teeth, but he came close enough for her to tear his throat from his body and knelt before her._

_“She told me about you once. You’re Nymeria, aren’t you?”_

_She knew that name.That was her girl’s name for her.She sniffed the man and found a faint, familiar scent.Her girl had marked him._

_“Arya, your girl, she took my heart, you see?” the Gendry continued.“I didn’t mean to give it, but I don’t think I’ll ever get it back.You can have me if you want, but could you let her go?”_

_The man looked back at the whimpering girl.“Gendry, no!Don’t do this!” she cried._

_“Please,” he asked again, salt water falling from his eyes with a small smile on his lips._

_She licked the salt from his face and turned away, her pack following.She would not harm what belonged to her girl, or what belonged to him._

_…_

_Arya jolted awake even though the only sound in their camp was the Hound’s rough snoring.She thought she might have had a wolf dream when she was young and on the run in the Riverlands, but never like this.It was never so real before.She could almost feel the warmth radiating off of Gendry’s body.She supposed she should be curious or even concerned about having seen the world through Nymeria’s eyes, but all she felt was sharp pangs of jealousy toward the woman Gendry was willing to give his life to protect.It had barely been two weeks.She had all but told him to find someone else, she just didn’t expect him to do it so quickly._

_“Perhaps he’s more like his father than I thought,” she muttered to herself._

_“You say something, Wolf Girl?”_

_“Fuck off,” she growled back at him._

* * *

 

Arya had not thought about that dream since she had it nearly fifteen years earlier.The blood of the First Men flowed through her veins, and it was strong in her youngest child too.She blew out the candle beside her bed.She would think about it tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tristran is sort of an original character. Talisa tells Robb about her brother in the scene where they first sleep together, but she never gives him a name. So I named him after the protagonist of Neil Gaiman's Stardust, and based his physical description on an actor who could probably pass for Oona Chaplin's brother, who was, as it turns out, in the film version of Stardust (no, it's not Charlie Cox).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. The Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My biggest problems with that council scene was the fact that Edmure Tully was speaking (I get that Tobias Menzies is everywhere now, but still) and that Gendry had no more to say than Robin freaking Arryn (although on the subject of Robin Arryn, that boy deserves a three syllable daaaaaaamn for that glow-up). My disdain for the remaining Tullys is pretty evident in this chapter.

Sandor Baratheon, the Storm Prince, was the image of his father, though not nearly as broad. His father had built up years of muscle in a forge and then at war. Sandor, though he was trained with a broadsword and a hammer, preferred the speed and agility his mother had taught him. Consequently, he was leaner, like the stag on the old Baratheon sigil. His mother always said his father was more of a bull than a stag anyway. 

He had grown taller than either of his parents during his thirteenth year.For a brief moment, he believed that gave him some power over them.His mother dispelled him of this notion with a raised eyebrow and a move that had him flat on his back.His father had laughed so hard, he fell out of his chair in front of the fireplace and almost stopped breathing.

“Why must we ride so slowly?” this came from ten-year-old Shireen, who had taken to trotting circles around Sandor and their father from atop her mare.

“Because certain people never learned how to properly sit a horse,” Sandor replied, dramatically craning his head toward his father.

Shireen giggled as she circled them again. His father shook his head and said, “You should have more respect for your elders. Who raised you anyway?”

The sunshine caught Shireen’s loose hair causing the auburn to sparkle through the brown strands as she easily guided her horse to their father’s other side. “I’ve heard my father was a blacksmith that tamed a wild wolf,” she replied, her blue eyes sparkling.

Their father barked a laugh that rang out across the King’s Road. “Oh, sweetling, no one has ever tamed a wolf.”

“Am I a wolf, Papa?” Shireen asked after a short silence.

“No, you’re a fish,” Sandor teased leaning forward in his saddle to look at her around their father’s hulking form.

“I am not!” she protested loudly, startling her horse momentarily.

“You look a Tully,” Sandor reminded her, the tease still evident in his voice.

The copper in Shireen’s hair had always harkened back to their mother’s Tully blood. The straight nose, sharp cheeks, and blue eyes Shireen had clearly gotten from their father, but it made her resemble their Aunt Sansa as much as any of her own children.

“I am  _not_ a Tully. Tullys are cowards! I am no coward!”

“Don’t speak of the Tullys like that,” their father warned in his firm, yet gentle voice. “They are your mother’s people same as yours.”

“Momma is a Stark, a she-wolf,” Shireen continued to argue.

“Aye, that she is, but her mother was born a Tully,” their father reminded them. “She wrapped her hands around a blade and sunk her teeth into a man sent to kill her broken boy.She was no coward.”

“She was still gutted like a fish and thrown back into the river.”

Sandor’s breath caught in his throat as his father’s hand shot out and he grabbed the reins of Shireen’s mare.The girl fell forward in her seat and had to grab the pommel to stay upright.

“Get off your horse. Now,” their father said in an eerily calm voice.

“But, I—”

“You will not go back to the carriage.You will not ride.You will walk.You will walk until you learn to respect the sacrifices of those that have come before you.”

“But, Papa—”

“Now!”

Sandor actually clenched his teeth and hissed.He could count the number of times his father had raised his voice to them on one hand.Shireen’s lip was quivering as she slid from her saddle.She walked back toward the wagon and fell into step next to the horses pulling it.One of the men in their retinue came and took Shireen’s mare from the Storm King and they carried on in awkward silence for a few moments.

“Papa?” Sandor began gently.

His father took a deep, calming breath, and looked over at him, “Yes, Sand?”

“Did you know our grandmother at all?Momma hardly ever mentions her.”

“I never met Lady Catelyn.And your mother hardly mentions her because they had always had a difficult relationship, and then she died.Horribly.”

Sandor nodded gravely.His earliest memory was of his mother crying.Looking back, it probably stuck in his four-year-old mind so clearly because he had not seen his mother cry before or since.He also remembered the story she whispered to his father in the darkness of the hut they had been living in.His uncle Robb’s head had been taken from his body and his dire wolf’s head sewn in its place.His mother had seen the men jeering the ‘king of the north’ even as Sandor’s namesake huddled her to his chest.

“Why did they have a difficult relationship, though?” Sandor continued, pulling himself out of his memories.

His father sighed.“Do you know House Tully’s words?”

“Family. Duty. Honor,” Sandor recited immediately. His maester would have been proud.

“Aye.You see, Lady Catelyn did her duty and married Ned Stark for the honor of her house.And she gave him a family: five children.She wanted the same for her daughters.Your mother did not want that.”

Sandor shook his head.“But Momma married you, and you’re King of the Stormlands.Why would she have done that if she never even wanted to be a lady?”

His father’s eyebrows arched upward as he looked over at him.“Sand, you’ve met enough ladies in your life to know what they’re like.Your mother is nothing like them.The only stitching she’s good at is with human flesh.She wouldn’t attend a banquet even if it was being thrown in her honor.Do you even remember the last time she wore a dress?”

He thought about it a moment and replied, “I was very little. We were on that island in the west, although, you couldn’t _really_ call that dress.”

A blush creeped up the back his father’s neck.“No, you really couldn’t,” he muttered, smiling.

Disgust roiled in the pit of Sandor’s stomach.“Ugh, Papa, stop it,” he complained.

His father’s smile changed as he considered his son for a long moment.“You have no idea how lucky you are, do you?”

The words were said in a gentle tone, but Sandor felt the sting of chastisement in them.“I do know, Papa,” he attempted to defend.“I know that many people go hungry and—”

“That’s not what I mean,” his father interrupted.“You have both your parents in your life, and they have loved one another since before you were born.I didn’t realize that was even rarer for highborns than it was for lowborns like I was.You’ve been lucky to always see was love looks like.”

Sandor smirked.“I didn’t know real love involved so many knives.”

His father glared at him.“You want to walk too?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I wrote this part first.


	4. City of Kings, Home of Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The flashbacks in this story (which are taking place in my alternative to season 8) are being told rather out of order and this part skips ahead quite a bit to Gendry's perspective during the battle of King's Landing. There will be more differences in my version (I started plotting it out before "The Bells" aired), but that is for a later chapter. Right now, it probably won't seem that much different from the episode that aired other than the fact that Gendry is, you know, present.

They were less than a mile from the gates of King’s Landing, and Shireen had dutifully been walking by the wagon for more than an hour.Gendry guided his horse back to her and scooted back in his saddle and offered his hand to her.She scrunched her face at his offered hand in disgust and, despite her physical appearance, Shireen had never reminded him more of her mother.Arya hadn’t been much older than Shireen when they had been tossed together, and he still couldn’t fathom how someone so small could be such a huge pain in his arse.

“You can either ride with me, or you can walk into King’s Landing where the streets are covered in shit,” he told her firmly.

Shireen grimaced and took his hand, and he pulled her onto the saddle in front of him. It was still easy to lift her, and for that he was grateful. He dreaded the day his strength might wane and he would no longer be able to lift his children. When she was settled with her body between his arms and both her legs hanging from one side of the horse, he picked up his reins and clicked his tongue to urge the horse onward. 

“Other papas don’t swear in front of their daughters.”

“Apologies, Milady. I didn’t realize coarse language would cause such damage to your constitution.”

His daughter smirked though he could tell she was trying not to. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head, and she leaned back into his chest.

“Do you understand why I punished you, Shireen?”

“Because I was rude about Grandmother?” She did not sound at all certain.

“I wasn’t looking for an answer in the form of a question.”

“I don’t understand,” Shireen admitted in a huff. “I know you don’t like Lord Edmure.”

Gendry groaned. “No, I don’t like Lord Edmure. He’s the sort of high born that used to treat me like the dirt beneath their feet. He doesn’t understand his duty the same way your grandparents did.”

“You don’t mean your father, do you, Papa?”

“No, I don’t. I mean your mother’s parents, both of them,” Gendry told her. “Shireen, you have a large family, a family that you can know and be proud of. I never had any of that until I was a grown man. And I didn’t have a family to be proud of until your mother let me into hers.I want you to take pride in who your family is.”

“I’ll try, Papa.”

“S’all I ask,” he replied, pressing a kiss to her hair.

Shireen leaned into him and wrapped one arm around his back to grasp onto his shirt as the other hand grasped onto the hair of Orys’ mane.The south gate of the the city was open to them and young Robb Gaines rode ahead of their procession with the Baratheon banner unfurled.Gone was the stag of generations passed.Black profiles of a bull and a dire wolf on a field of gold had taken its place.His chest clenched as he passed under the archway.

The murmurs among the people of the city began almost immediately.

“It’s the Storm King!”

“The Baratheon Bull!”

“The savior of the city!”

Gendry’s hands tightened on the reins, and he had to resist the urge to spur his horse quickly through the streets.

“Are you all right, Papa?”

“Of course I am,” he lied.“I just have a lot of memories here.Some of those memories hurt.”

Shireen looked up at him, her chin jutting forward and her lips set into a thin line.Even though her eyes were copies of his own, the fierceness reflected in them was all Arya. “I’ll protect you from the memories, Papa.”

“I wish you could, sweetling.”

“Your Grace?” a woman asked, timidly approaching his horse. She was heavy with child and holding the hand of another child of no more than three years.

“Yes, ma’am?” Gendry replied, halting his horse.He could feel Ser Steffon Gaines, the leader of his guard, drawing closer and Sandor appeared at his side as well.

“I know your queen does not come to the city, but she saved me from the fires when I was a girl, and you, Your Grace, carried my husband to the water and safety yourself,” the woman explained, holding a bundle of flowers toward them.“It’s not enough to repay your graces for the family I have, but it is all I have to offer.”

“Go on,” Gendry whispered in her daughter’s ear.

Shireen’s smile was strained, but she reached down and took the flowers from the woman.

“Thank you,” Gendry said quietly as the woman and her son bowed before him.

He tutted the horse onward and their procession slowly made their way through the city.More women offered Shireen flowers.Nearly everyone they passed bowed their heads, and many bent their knees.With every person they passed, Gendry felt more knots forming in his stomach.He had not wanted the lordship that became a kingdom so that others would kneel before him.He had certainly not lead men into the city the day two queens fought over it for adulation.He had done it to protect the people that were truly no different from him.

Shireen, though only a child, must have sensed his discomfort as she had taken to rubbing circles on his back and saying, “It will be all right, Papa.”

“Is this why we usually arrive in the dead of night?” Sandor asked, smirking.

“It is actually,” Gendry grumbled in reply.

A group of young ladies in their fine clothes on the balcony of one of the houses were pointing and giggling as Sandor passed and Gendry could see the blush creeping up the back of his neck.

“Your son is the very image of you, Your Grace,” a male voice called out from the crowd.

“More’s the pity for him!” Gendry called back, causing Shireen to cackle and Sandor to throw him a glare Arya would have been proud of. 

Guards on horseback wearing black armor bearing the image of a raven with three eyes appearedfrom the opposite direction.“Your Grace, we’ve been instructed to escort you to your good-brother’s house,” the leader told them.

Gendry resisted the urge to heave a sigh of relief, and simply replied, “Lead on.”

With the Three-Eyed-Raven’s personal guard leading, they made better time through the city until they were passing through what used to be the main gate of the Red Keep.The castle itself had been destroyed in the battle, it’s only remnants a pile of stones dripping into Blackwater Bay.A large, round structure stood before the pile of rubble.Gendry knew it had been constructed from the castle’s debris, though it was not obvious.The building housed Westeros’s council of lords and common men every year and the Great Council of Kings and Queens every five years.Three great houses occupied by the only permanent council members and assorted outbuildings of stables and cookhouses surrounded the wide-open courtyard.

“Sandy, I want your back!” Shireen called out as her brother dismounted his horse.

Sandor groaned but walked over to them and turned his back with his arms outstretched ready to catch her as she slid from Gendry’s saddle and jumped onto Sandor’s back.He grunted loudly and said, “Gods, you’re getting too heavy for this.”

“Am not!” Shireen protested as Gendry shook his head and handed Orys’ reins to the stable boy.

Sandor responded by spinning around until his sister was shrieking and begging him to stop.

“Gendry!”

He turned to see Gilly Tarly and at least four of her children and another young man approaching their group.Gendry gaped when he realized after a moment that the young man was, in fact, Little Sam.

“Lady Tarly,” Gendry greeted as he hugged his old friend.

She slapped him playfully and said, “Don’t call me that.I’m certainly not going to call you Your Grace.”

“Mother,” Little Sam, who was nearly a foot taller than his mother, admonished.

“It’s alright,” Gendry said, waving him off.“I wish no one called me that.Is Sam about?”

“You’ll find him and Lord Tyrion both meeting with Bran.You’re the first to arrive.Your good sister and her family should be here in a day or so.”

“They’ve made good time,” Gendry said, his eyebrows arched upward.“Arya only arrived in Winterfell three weeks ago.”

“Do you miss her terribly?”

Gendry shrugged.“Only as though I’m missing a hand,” he admitted with a groan.

Gilly smiled and squeezed his arm affectionately.

Gendry turned sharply at a frightened scream from his daughter. The blocky form of Jon Tarly had all but tackled Sandor, causing him to lose his hold on his sister, sending her sprawling onto the hard ground. Before Gendry could rush to his daughter’s aid, she was on her feet and driving her fist into Jon Tarly’s gut strong enough to wind the young man. Sandor grasped his little sister about the waist and restrained her from perpetrating any more violence against his best friend.

“Oi! What do you think you’re doing, knocking little girls to the ground?” Gilly shouted at her second-born, her fists on her hips.

“Sorry, Momma,” Jon groaned, still clutching his stomach.

“I’m not who you need to apologize to.”

“I’m sorry, Princess,” Jon said, finally straightening up.

Shireen struggled against her brother’s grasp until Gendry placed his hand on her shoulder. She was still red-faced and her hands were clenched into fists, but she said, “I accept your apology.”

Sandor breathed a heavy sigh of relief and let his sister go. Gilly announced luncheon and started ushering her children toward their house. Sandor started to follow and Gendry placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“When you’ve got your family in your arms, they’re your top priority, you understand?”

“Well, I held her back, didn’t I?”

Gendry rolled his eyes but nodded his agreement. “Fair point.” He pressed a quick kiss to his son’s head and the boy pulled a face before Gendry pushed him along to follow the Tarlys.

He then squatted down in front of Shireen to be eye level with her. “He deserved it, Papa,” she protested hurriedly.

“Not saying he didn’t,” Gendry replied, holding his hands up placatingly, “but Jon Tarly is barely five and ten he’s already taller than I am and just as broad. You shouldn’t go around attacking people that are that much bigger than you.”

“Then I wouldn’t get to attack anyone,” Shireen argued.

He’d had almost this exact conversation before with a different skinny, irrational little girl; a girl he loved as fiercely as the one before him.He held her face in his hands and pressed a long kiss to her cheek.

“What was that for?” Shireen asked, an eyebrow raised incredulously.

“Just remembered why I love you so much,” he answered before grabbing her legs and tossing her over his shoulder like a sack of grain.

“Papa! Put me down!”

“Nope. Never.”

* * *

 

_“Take him! Take him!” Gendry shouted to one of his men, passing a boy with a twisted ankle into his arms.“Go to the water, it’s the safest way out now!”_

_The bells of surrender had not yet rung, but the Iron Fleet was already smoke in the Blackwater.The wall would soon fall, if it had not already, and hopefully the battle would end.But Gendry remembered the day the Sept of Baelor exploded in a cloud of green smoke.If the dragon didn’t burn the city, he was certain Cersei would burn it down before she let anyone else have it._

_A group of women and children were running toward them pursued by Dothraki screamers.Gendry grabbed his hammer and took out the legs of one of the horses as he ducked to miss the swing of the arakh. His men followed his lead, and he pushed down the guilt as they fell, but the Dothraki fell as well, and most of the women and children made it to the culvert to the sea they were protecting._

_The bells rang out and everything seemed to stop for a moment, as if the whole world was holding its breath.Distantly, he heard the sound of clanging steel.It was over.The Lannister army was surrendering.Before Gendry could heave a sigh of relief, however, Drogon roared and flew straight to the Red Keep, blazing a path of destruction as he went._

_Arya would certainly have made it to the castle in the chaos.She was there along with all the people Cersei had invited to be a useless shield._

_Gendry turned and grabbed the shirt of Ser Steffon, the first of his bannermen to accept him as the new Storm Lord.“Make sure the people can get out!” he shouted over the din of the battle._

_“My lord?”_

_“I’m going to the Keep!” Gendry replied, answering his unspoken question._

_“But my lord!”_

_“Protect the way out!From anyone!Do you understand?”_

_Ser Steffon nodded gravely and squared his shoulders, his sword held high.“Stormlanders!With me!”_

_Gendry ran as he hadn’t since Jon had sent him back to Eastwatch, his hammer clutched in his hand, ready to strike anyone intent to harm the people of the city.He wove through the streets he knew so well, dodging humans and horses and falling debris.He came to the outer gate, his heart pounding in his chest.People were screaming on the other side of the heavy wooden doors that would not open.Not thinking what else he could possibly do, he swung his hammer.Despite the chaos, a Lannister soldier joined him and swung away with an ax.Another soldier joined their plight until they created a hole in the gate and people started pouring out._

_The the screamers started charging through the line of refugees.Gendry yelled for them to go for the legs of the horses.Then something connected with his chest and his head connected with stone and he thought distantly that death had finally come for him._

* * *

 

Gendry woke with a start and reached for a weapon only to find the arms of the wooden chair that was sat before a blazing hearth.

“Are you all right, brother?”

Gendry blinked and looked up to find Bran sitting serenely across from him.“I, uh, I…no, I’m not,” he finally admitted, scrubbing his hands across his face.“Just remembering the first time I got anywhere near the gates of the Keep.”

Bran nodded and hummed in understanding as he stared into the flames.“It’s not usual, you know; what you did that day.”

Gendry shifted uncomfortably in his seat.It was not the first time someone had said as much to him. He would never find it in himself to believe it.

“When a lord is elevated, whether high-born or low, their first action is never to ride to another city in order to evacuate its people to safety.They weren’t even your subjects,” Bran continued.

“No, but I was one of them,” Gendry replied.“I’d been used as a pawn in enough fucking games by then.They didn’t deserve to the same fate.And I wasn’t brave.I left my men at the evacuation point, and ran to the gates of the Keep.I didn’t do that for anyone else.I did that for myself.I did it because Arya was there.I saw what dragon fire did at Harrenhall.I didn’t want her to die in that. Gods, I was stupid.”

A small smile graced Bran’s face.“You were right where you needed to be.”

Gendry scoffed.“It’s easy to say that now.”

“Perhaps,” Bran agreed quietly.

Gendry rose and stretched the muscles that had been cramped from being too long in the chair.“Do you need help to your bed, or anything?”

“No,” Bran answered.“I think I’ll check on the others for a while.Goodnight, Gendry.”

“Goodnight, Bran,” Gendry replied as the other man laid his head back and his eyes went white.


	5. Memories at Midnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I bought and moved into and painted a house since last I posted. And this chapter is super long, and mostly from the perspective of a character outside of my primary pairing. 
> 
> Please note: I am not a medical professional, and there is discussion of birth in this chapter which may in no way be medically accurate because my medical knowledge of pregnancy and birth comes almost entirely from television and what I hear from my friends while I coo at their newborns. Also there's a total anachronism that sort of makes sense with the given canon of the show.
> 
> Thanks for your patience!

_“I’m not the Red Woman,” Arya said, drawing his eyes from the scars on her torso, “take your own bloody pants off.”_

_Confusion flashed across his blue eyes, but he quickly worked the laces of his trousers.She relished this power she had over him, and wondered if it was this way with most men and women, or if it was because he was Gendry and she was Arya.She drank in those blue eyes blown nearly black as she climbed atop him.She kissed him slowly, despite their lack of time.She wanted to remember this._

_She pulled away one last time to look in his eyes.They were the wrong color of blue._

* * *

Arya’s eyes shot open.The last time she had had that dream, she had woken up in labor pains with Davos. This time, the pain was less, but her stomach roiled and she barely managed to untangle herself from the furs on her bed before she expelled her supper into her chamber pot.

“Fuck! Fucking hells! Fuck!” she groaned.

She had been ignoring the signs for over a week. Apparently, indulging in the fine Dornish red right before she left for White Harbor had not been the greatest idea. Arya rubbed her still flat belly in hopes of calming the nausea. It did not help.

Then she heard it: the creaking of the ancient floor outside her room. Suddenly her nausea was gone. She drew Needle from its scabbard, and opened the door, her steps silent. She turned to see a figure wrapped in furs opening the door of the room where Davos slept. She moved across the candlelit hall.The door to his room was still open and the figure, whom she could see was a bearded man, was squatting next to her sleeping son.He reached toward the boy and quick as a shadow, she came up behind him and pressed Needle against his throat.

“Touch my son, and it will be the last thing you ever do,” she warned.

The man’s hand was frozen in air, but a chuckle bubbled from his throat.“Be funny to die by a sword I ordered from the smithy myself.”

Arya was sure her heart stopped.The man in front of her turned his head and looked up.His beard was longer and peppered with gray, and his unruly hair was somehow even wilder.He had a few more scars, but his eyes were still the same brown, reassuring eyes she had known all her life.

“Jon?” she whispered shakily.

His only reply was to stand and wrap his arms around her middle, lifting her off her feet as she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his furs.

“Gods, you’re too heavy for this,” he grunted, putting her back down on her feet.

She punched him playfully, Needle still in her hand.“I am not,” she hissed back.

“Who’s this then?” he whispered, turning back to the still-sleeping boy on the bed. 

“That’s Davos,” she replied, gently lifting the boy’s arm back onto the bed from where it was dangling off the edge.

“He’s a good sleeper,” Jon commented with a smirk.

“Gets that from his father,” Arya explained.“Gendry could sleep in the mud, sitting up, while being pelted with rain.  In fact, he has.”

Ghost silently padded in through the open door, and Arya’s heart warmed at the sight of him.He was bigger than when she had last seen him—dire wolves never really stopped growing—and most of his injuries from the Long Night had since faded save for his shortened ear.He sniffed at Arya and nuzzled Jon briefly before walking over to Davos and staring at his sleeping face.After a long moment, he circled once and settled down next to the boy’s bed.

“You going to guard my nephew for the night then?” Jon whispered to him.

Ghost looked up in the slightest form of acknowledgement before resting his head back on his paws.

“All right then,” Jon said with a slight chuckle.

“Come on,” Arya whispered, pulling her brother from the room and closing the door behind them.“Are you hungry?”

“A bit,” Jon admitted.

Arya smiled conspiratorially and led her brother to the kitchens.

* * *

Jon had not seen Arya in nearly ten years.He had told her she was heavy, but in truth, she was smaller than she had been then, having just given birth to her daughter, Shireen a few moons earlier.Motherhood and a kingdom had not much changed his little sister.There was no gray in her hair and hardly any lines on her face.The only signs of the passage of time on her were the freckles that spoke of too much sun, and the circles under her eyes.  He also thought she looked a bit pale.

“Are you alright?” he asked.“Thought I might have heard you retching and swearing up a storm.”

“Oh that?” she asked, sniffing a canister before placing it back on the shelf. “I’m just pregnant.”

Jon blinked in surprise. Arya did not sound at all happy about having another child. She was, in fact, grumbling as she scooped tea into a copper kettle.

“Is that...are you...” He couldn’t find the words to finish the question.

Arya stared at him as though he had grown a second head. “You think this is moon tea? Do you not know anything?”

“Been told I don’t,” he muttered in response.

“I think I’m nearly two moons gone now,” she explained as she placed the kettle on the hook and swung it into the flames of the fireplace. “A strong enough moon tea would be just as likely to cause me to bleed to death as simply rid my body of a babe. I’ve seen it happen before.”

Jon hoped his furs would hide the shudder that traveled down his spine. He poured himself a mug of ale from the pitcher on the table where the kitchen servants ate their meals, and gathered bread and cheese from the larder. He sat down on the bench with his provisions on a platter as Arya sat across from him, her fingers thrumming a steady rhythm as she waited for her tea to boil.

“Gendry won’t want me to have another child,” she said quietly, regarding the scarred surface of the table as though it had personally wronged her.

Jon swallowed the bread in his mouth and said, “Why not? I saw Gendry with Sandor and Shireen. He loves them.”

“It has nothing to do with the children themselves. You see, Davos came early, and he came out wrong,” she explained, fiddling with a loose thread on her tunic.

Jon’s brow furrowed in confusion. He had not been able to see well in the dim light of the room, but the boy had looked alright. He had mostly been shocked to find a child that looked so much like Arya had at that age.

“There’s nothing wrong with Davos,” Arya said in a tone meant to imply Jon was the stupidest man to ever live. “He literally came out of me wrong. Breach is what Sam called it.”

“Sam was with you?”

“He was here, as were we,” Arya replied. “Gilly’s sisters have settled near Castle Black. They were visiting. Good thing, too. I would have been dead without Sam.”

“What...can you tell me what happened?” he asked.

Arya sighed, but took a deep breath and said, “There’s always blood. You know that, don’t you?”

Jon glared in response, unable to reply due to the bread in his mouth.

“Well, how am I supposed to know how many births you’ve witnessed? Anyway, when Davos came out arse first, it tore me open. I’ve never experienced a worse pain. I passed out, so I didn’t witness what happened later, but I believe what I’ve been told. Tristran and Pod and two of Sansa’s guards had to pull Gendry from my side as Sam stitched me up. Sam knew what was coming. He had this contraption he’d built, it was a pump meant to move blood from one person to another. Apparently, that cunt Qyburn designed it. Can’t really fault him, though. It did save my life.”

“You survived because Sam used someone else’s blood to replace what you lost?”

Arya nodded. “Sansa’s blood. Sam thought it best that they use a blood relative.”

“Gods,” he swore darkly.

“I didn’t wake right away. No one knew if what they had attempted would work, or if I would take a fever and die. Gendry went mad with grief. He hit a post in the forge so hard that the ceiling nearly collapsed. Gilly finally slapped him about the ears and reminded him that he was still a father whether I lived or not, and that his children needed him. When I did wake, he was by my side, holding Davos and telling me he had my eyes.”

Jon smiled, but Arya’s lips drew into a tight line and a darkness washed over her features. The kettle began to whistle in the hearth, and he waited as his sister found rags and pulled the kettle from the fire and poured the amber liquid into a cup.

“Lemon and ginger. Soothes the stomach,” she explained simply as she set the kettle aside.

“Arya, what aren’t you telling me?” he asked, refusing to let her change the subject.

She met his eyes and set her jaw as if she were preparing herself against a fight. Whether that fight was with him, or with her own past, Jon could not tell.

“Gendry would hardly touch me after that.Even after Sam said it would be fine, Gendry just…didn’t want to take the chance.Everything sort of came to a head around Davos’s first name day.Tristran came down with the boys and brought Tormund along.Did he ever tell you anything that happened?”

Jon remembered Tormund’s journey south to see what sort of wolf-pups the Night King Slayer had with that ‘fucking silly southern smith’.Tormund had returned mostly talking about how the south stunk worse than a she-bear’s cunt.He hadn’t even managed to recall the name of Arya and Gendry’s youngest child.And when Jon had pressed him for details, Tormund always managed to bring the story around to something that happened before Mance Rayder became King Beyond the Wall.

“Tormund’s not very good at intelligence gathering,” Jon replied simply.

“Well, it all came to a head in a single day,” Arya huffed. “A kitchen maid came to me to inform me she was with child. They all usually go to Bella with that sort of nonsense, but she came to me because Gendry was the father.”

“He wouldn’t. He—“

“Shut your mouth and let me finish,” Arya ordered coolly. “I didn’t believe her. I threatened to gut her like a fish and threw her out of my rooms. But...then I thought about it. Gendry was barely holding me while we slept. And I remember what his father was like. He was kissing and groping maids in our own hall in front of his fucking wife. I know she was a murderous cunt, but that fat bastard had no idea how to honor his vows. It’s no wonder our aunt ran off with another man.”

Jon felt his heart clench at the mention of Lyanna Stark, and the reminder that his sister was not really his sister. Arya must have realized her mistake after a few moments because her features visibly softened and she reached out and took his hand.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked about them that way.”

Jon shook his head. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he replied with a small smile. “Go on.”

“I didn’t see him for the rest of the day, and it just festered. I never doubted Gendry before, but then I thought about how he’d started looking at me differently, and he barely touched me, and that he was the only person that had ever called me ‘beautiful.’ What if he didn’t think that anymore?”

Jon felt his heart crumble.They had spent so much time apart, but he recognized the look on her face.It was the same she wore as a small child when the other girls in the castle would call her Arya Horseface.He thought that girl long dead, killed in King’s Landing and in Braavos.

“I wouldn’t think you would _ever_ feel that way,” he admitted.

She narrowed her gaze toward him, her eyes blazing.“Why?” she asked venomously. “Because I trained as a Faceless Man?Because I killed the Night King?Even with everything that happened, I’m still a person.I’m allowed to have a fucking emotion.I’m not Bran!”

Jon’s eyebrows arched upward.Arya visibly deflated as well.Jon gingerly reached across the table and covered one of her hands with his own.“I’m sorry,” he told her.“Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile the loud little girl that used to follow me around with fierce warrior I know you to be.I know the truth must be somewhere between those two extremes.Still, insecurity doesn’t really suit you.”

Arya nodded in agreement.“But it happens,” she said, as quietly as a whisper.More clearly, she continued, “Gendry came to our room that same night smelling like whatever wildling piss Tormund brought with him.”

Jon grimaced.Despite nearly twenty combined years of living with the Free Folk, he was still sickened at the thought of what passed for ale with them.

“Gendry was talking nonsense about his father, and then he said he never should have married me.And then he said he should never have married me, that I deserved better than a death on the birthing bed, that I was too powerful and that he had made me weak. Said he was the worst shit in the world for doing that to me and that I should just leave.”

Jon shook his head. “People say things they don’t mean when they’re drunk.”

“No, people say things they don’t mean to say when they’re drunk,” Arya corrected him. “Gendry had been holding onto that for quite a while. So, I dumped cold water on him and broke the pitcher over his head for good measure.”

Jon managed a chuckle. “Did he come to his senses then?”

Arya shrugged. “Probably. I wasn’t there. I left.”

“You what?!” Jon asked after having nearly choked on his ale. “Arya, your children, your—“

“Are you about to give me a lecture about running from my responsibilities? You?” she cut him off.

Jon’s fists clenched on the table. “It’s not the same,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“It’s sure as hells not that different,” she answered, her arms crossed and chin jutting forward defiantly.

“Did he come after you?” Jon asked, pointedly looking in his sister’s eyes as he changed the subject.

“He couldn’t. This was almost exactly five years ago. He had to go to the Great Council. If he didn’t appear at the council, he could lose the Stormlands.It was your rule that if the kings and queens didn’t appear at the great councils that the other rulers had right and obligation to see to the ruling of its neighbor’s people.”

“I thought it would keep the Greyjoys in the fold,” Jon grumbled.

“It’s worked very well,” Arya assured him. “It’s probably the only sound political move you’ve made in your life.” 

“It’s very funny to hear Sansa’s voice come out of _your_ mouth,” he told her.

His little sister calmly returned his gaze.“The time I would have found that an insult is long since passed,” she told him.“It wasn’t a very productive council from what I understand.I think Bella must have written to Sansa and told her at least some of what happened.Never asked what exactly she said to Gendry, but he left the council and nearly rode his horse to death until he found me in the Riverlands.”

“He found you when you didn’t want to be found?” Jon asked around a mouthful of bread.

“I scold Davos for doing that,” she commented before sipping her tea.“You forget Gendry didn’t grow up hunting.He stomps everywhere and can’t track for shit.He asked Bran where I was, which is frankly cheating.I wasn’t far from where we were separated when Beric Dondarrion sold him to the Red Woman.Guess I’ve gotten sentimental.”

“And?”

“And we had it out like we probably should have had six or seven moons earlier.Scared the shit out of some squirrels,” she muttered, sipping her tea. “And then we made up, and gave the squirrels quite a show.”

Bile rose in Jon’s throat and he closed his eyes at the proud look on his sister’s face. 

“Fear cuts deeper than swords,” Arya quoted, her face becoming serious once again, “and we had both been afraid. I was afraid I’d lost my husband’s attention and he was afraid he would be the cause of my death. He’s seen me fight, he knows the horrors I’ve survived.He’s the only one that knows all of them. He thought a death on a birthing bed was so far beneath me, he didn’t want to take the risk.I told him he was being stupid and he reminded me I was being cowardly running away like I did. It hurt, but it helped us find our way back to one another. I think it’s my second favorite fight we’ve ever had.”

Jon scoffed and shook his head. “What’s your favorite fight then?”

Arya smirked. “You were there for part of it.”

“I was?” Jon asked, hoping his voice conveyed his utter confusion.

Arya’s sly expression faltered. “Yes. It was before King’s Landing. Remember?”

Jon felt a weight settle over his heart. He remembered.

* * *

_“Are the men safely encamped?” Jon asked, pacing back and forth in his tent._

_“They are,” Davos answered, calmly standing to one side with his hands clasped behind his back. “And, no, we haven’t had any word from Her Grace.”_

_Jon stopped pacing, but couldn’t find it in himself to turn and face the older man.“Cersei isn’t just a usurper on the throne to her anymore. Rhaegal is dead. Missandei is dead. Dany already lost enough in the North.”_

_“Including you, it would seem.”_

_Davos’ voice was kind as it almost always was, but his words struck Jon like ice water. “I...” he began with no notion of what he could possibly say next._

_“You don’t have to give me specifics, but I don’t understand what could have happened,” Davos continued. “I see the look on your face whenever her name is mentioned.You still love her.You don’t need an invitation to Dragonstone.Just go to her.”_

_Jon finally turned to face Davos.“I can’t do that,” he said, shoulders slumping as defeat filled his voice.“She won’t want me.I’d just remind her of what she’s lost.”_

_“How?” Davos asked, the kindness in his voice replaced with exasperation.“You’re still here!”_

_“I—“_

_The sound of his tent flap opening cut him off. Gendry stepped in with his warhammer in a tight fist and a furrowed brow. His lips were pressed into a thin line and a vein was visible on his neck. The effort to control his emotions was clearly straining the other man. Davos looked just as confused at Gendry’s sudden appearance as Jon felt._

_“Gendry, are you—“_

_“A messenger just brought me a letter from Queen Daenerys,” Gendry cut him off._

_Jon couldn’t hide his surprise, though he hoped he was hiding the flash of jealousy he felt. “What-why?”_

_“She wants me to make sure you die once the battle is joined,” Gendry replied simply._

_Jon felt as though his lungs had been ripped from his body. He promised her he would never threaten her claim to the throne. No one beyond his family would ever know his true parentage. It didn’t make sense. “She wouldn’t...why would she do that?”_

_Gendry finally met Jon’s eyes. “She told me that our fathers didn’t fight side-by-side. Turns out, my father actually killed your father.”_

_“What? Jon?” Davos asked, eyes darting between the two younger men._

_“Gendry, I-“_

_The warhammer landed at Jon’s feet, and most of the tension left Gendry’s body. “She doesn’t know me,” he said gruffly. “If she did, she would know that I don’t know how to read more than a few words that have to do with smithing. Bella had to read the letter to me. Nearly every high born I’ve ever met has just wanted to use me: Dondarrion, Stannis, Daenerys, even Arya. I’m done with the lot of you.”_

_The prevailing feeling in Jon’s mind was confusion. He didn’t understand what he could have possibly done to make Daenerys distrust him so completely.Gendry turned to leave, but then froze in his tracks.Standing just inside Jon’s tent was Arya, red-faced and chest heaving, though her breath made no sound.Jon breathed his sister’s name in surprise, but her eyes didn’t leave Gendry, and the tension he’d borne earlier returned to his body._

_“I never used you,” Arya said, her throat tight and her gaze piercing._

_Gendry held her gaze even as his fists clenched until his knuckles were whiter than snow. “The fuck you didn’t,” he answered darkly._

_Arya’s mouth opened as though she were about to reply, but then she closed it and her eyes found Jon’s. “You should take his word, but this is the letter if you don’t believe him,” she said flatly, holding a bloodied piece of parchment toward him._

_“That’s blood!” Gendry gasped. “Bella. Gods, is she—“_

_“Your woman is fine,” Arya bit back. “The Dothraki boy that delivered the message attacked her and got a dagger in the throat for his trouble.”_

_Gendry glared at her, but his mouth almost twisted into a smirk.Arya’s jaw clenched under the scrutiny even as she refused to turn toward Gendry.Jon wanted to focus on what was transpiring between his sister and his friend, anything to distract him from the parchment in his hands. He recognized Daenerys’s handwriting. His vision blurred on her request for loyalty from the new Lord of the Stormlands._

_“Jon? Jon,” Arya’s voice said firmly._

_He blinked away the tears in his eyes and looked up at her. “Arya, what-what are you doing here?”_

_She looked down for a moment and replied, “I came to King’s Landing to kill Cersei.”_

_“What?Why?” Jon asked._

_“Cersei’s on her list,” Gendry answered.“With Joffrey dead, she’d be at the top, wouldn’t she?”_

_Arya’s features softened as she looked back at him. “Yes,” she said softly before turning back toward Jon. “I’m here right now because one of Varys’s little birds found me. He knows about you. Or he did. He’s probably dead by now. The girl told me she wasn’t the only bird he sent.”_

_Jon’s legs gave way and he fell back onto his cot, the letter crumpled in one hand.“I don’t want it,” he mumbled.“She-she has to know that.”_

_“Will someone please explain to me what in seven hells is going on?” Davos demanded evenly._

_Jon swallowed the bile creeping up his throat and looked up at the older man.“Ned Stark wasn’t my father,” he admitted, holding Davos’s gaze.“Rhaegar Targaryen was my father and Lyanna Stark, his wife, was my mother.”_

_A number of emotions passed across the old smuggler’s face.His brows finally knit together and he shifted his gaze to Arya.“How did you know to go to Gendry’s tent?”_

_Arya’s eyes shifted to where Gendry was standing so briefly Jon thought he might have imagined it.“Varys sent the girl to_ me _because he knew Daenerys had written Gendry.She asked me if I remembered what happened the last time a Baratheon lost a Stark.”_

_Gendry glared at the back of Arya’s head.“That’s what you think of me?You think I’m just like him?” he demanded, his voice dangerously low._

_Arya suddenly turned on him. “You certainly found a woman to warm your bed quickly enough,” she hissed._

_Gendry laughed at her. “And_ why _should that matter to you?”_

_“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Davos muttered, rolling his eyes.“I don’t know what’s gone on between the two of you, but Bella is Gendry’s_ sister _. And he’s not turned into Jaime Lannister in the last month.”_

_Gendry smirked at the widening of Arya’s eyes as they darted between him and Ser Davos._

_Arya’s nostrils flared.“You—”_

_“No,” Gendry cut her off.“You don’t get to be angry.”_

_He stormed out of the tent, and for the first time since Jon had known him, he thought Gendry’s house words suited him.His sister started to follow, but Jon called her name to stop her._

_Arya turned slowly.“I’ve known Gendry since the day they took Father’s head,” she explained a little too calmly.“I don’t care who fucked who and produced you.You’re still Ned Stark’s son.I know you want to be loyal to your queen, but loyalty is what got our father killed.I know you think she loves you, but clearly she doesn’t even love you as much as Robert Baratheon loved our father.You have to decide who you are today.Same as me.”_

_Arya was suddenly gone and Jon felt as though she might have carved out a piece of his heart and taken it with her.He crumpled the letter in his hands as Davos sat down on the cot next to him._

_“They say Robert loved his Lady Lyanna,” Davos stated._

_Jon nodded.“Our father used to say that he loved her for her beauty, but he never saw the iron underneath,” he recalled._

_“Well,” Davos began, a little brightness in his voice, “whatever has happened between Gendry and your sister, I’m sure he saw the iron in her first.He’d be a pretty shit blacksmith if he didn’t.And I think we all know he’s not a shit blacksmith.”_

_Jon laughed mirthlessly.“Aye.That’s true.”_

_Davos mercifully let the silence linger between them.Finally, he took deep breath and said, “What do you want to do, lad?”_

_“I don’t know,” Jon admitted through a choked sob.“I don’t want to be a king.I never have.”_

_“I’m not asking you to be a king, but I’m a Flea Bottom boy at heart,” Davos said.“Right now, there are a million people, most of them just like I was, stuck between two queens who believe they’ve lost everything but their power or their claim to it.You once took a vow to be the shield that guards the realms of men.Think you can still be that?”_

_Jon met the other man’s eyes.“What good could I possibly do now?”_

_“Well, in my very limited experience, the only thing that has much of a chance against a dragon is another dragon,” Davos said carefully.“Your sister’s right.You have to decide who you are today: are you the dragon or the wolf?”_

* * *

“It was the worst moment of my life,” Jon told her.“At least you found some good in it.If fighting with the person you love can be good.”

“Sometimes fighting is the only way to find your common ground,” she replied simply.

“Then why didn’t you fight with Gendry earlier, before the maid accused him, or any of it?”

Arya sat back and sighed and fixed him with a stare as though she was considering what to say. That alone unnerved him. Arya either brimmed with confidence and knowing, or she blurted out exactly what she thought. Her consideration to her words worried him in a way he could not really explain.

“Jon,” she began slowly, “you don’t have anyone, do you? No one that you’ve built a life with North of the Wall?”

He cast his eyes downward and shook his head.

“I won’t ask why. I know the answer,” she said in a surprisingly kind voice. “But if you’ve never made a life with someone, you won’t understand. There’s a rhythm that just happens, and you don’t want to break it. It’s just easier to go on with your routine, miserable as it may be, than risk making it worse. I was complacent and we were both more than a little cowardly. It really is all a lot easier when it’s just fucking and fighting. Doesn’t mean it’s better, though.”

Jon shook his head and smiled fondly at her. “Every time I see you, you amaze me, little sister.”

“That’s because you don’t see me often enough,” she replied without mirth.

“Aye,” Jon agreed sadly. It had been ten years since he’d seen Arya. He’d witnessed her suckling little Shireen from her own breast, holding the babe with a tenderness he did not think Arya possessed.Five years before that, when they reunited before The Long Night, a quiet, yet fierce, assassin had taken the place of the loud, wild little girl he remembered from his youth. Now, she was a woman wise enough to dole out advice on love and marriage. Arya Stark, it seemed, had many sides.

They sat in silence as Arya sipped her tea and absent-mindedly rubbed her stomach. Jon finished his bread and studied his sister’s face.Her eyes were fixed on a knot in the wood on the opposite wall as though it had personally wronged her, and she chewed her lip like she did when she was focused on a particularly difficult stitch.Jon almost laughed at how young the action made her look.He settled for smiling as he finished his makeshift.

“Sansa, Tristran, and the boys won’t be back for a month at least.There’s a tourney starting tomorrow and the Council is next week,” Arya stated before she drained the last of her tea.“You going stay for a little while at least?”

Jon smiled.“I think I’d like to get to know my nephew a little better.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've never really been a Dany stan, but neither did I dislike her. If D&D wanted to sell that she had lost her cookies, they needed to give that story more time to breathe, or go further with her tendency toward fire and blood, which is the option I'm trying to go with. We've seen Dany get low before. Go back to season two, and the gates of Qarth. Girl is screeching about destroying her enemies despite the fact that she has, like, two dozen starving Dothraki, a dehydrated knight, and three baby dragons who couldn't feed themselves. When she doesn't have much else going for her, Dany kind of reverts back to basic Targaryen instincts. She spent the next few seasons Abraham Lincoln-ing her way across Essos, and we forgot about that particular character flaw. (The writers apparently did too, because they talked about her reaction to Viserys' death as proof of madness. Frankly, that dude was her abuser who had directly threatened her unborn child a couple minutes earlier, she can be as chillingly cool with that as she wants, imho) However, having Jon kill her while he's kissing her isn't fair to either of them as characters, and that's not where I'm going with this either in upcoming chapters. Sorry for the rant, but...a show that's gotten as much acclaim and network and popular support as GoT shouldn't have gone out like that.
> 
> Thanks again for sticking with me!


	6. Fighting With My Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring the fight that gets Arya and Gendry back together.

_He was easy to follow despite the fact that he wasn’t a particularly large man.She was as familiar with the way he moved as she was with her own fashion of moving.The anger radiating off of him must have been obvious even in the torchlight of the camp since men were quick to get out of his way._

_She did not call out to him.He would have to stop eventually and she would catch him whether he liked it or not.He did stop when the woman, Bella, ran up to him and threw her arms around his neck.Now that Bella was standing on her tiptoes to hug the man that was apparently her brother, Arya could see how small she was.She was no taller than Arya, and a bit slimmer.She had Gendry’s high cheekbones, but a smaller nose with a slight upturn.Her black hair fell down her back in loose waves, and her blue eyes shone with relief rather than the fear Arya had seen when she burst into the tent to find the woman half-buried under a Dothraki boy with a dagger in his throat.Bella still had the dried blood on her hands._

_Gendry let go and held Bella by the shoulders.“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice harried._

_“Obviously, I’m fine,” Bella replied, throwing off his hold on her.“Stop being such a mother hen.He wasn’t the first man I’ve had to stab.”_

_Bella’s eyes found Arya’s and her gaze narrowed.Something like anger replaced annoyance in her blue eyes.“You’re Arya,” she stated before looking back to her brother.“She’s Arya, isn’t she?”_

_Gendry didn’t look back to confirm what his sister said, but his back straightened and his fists tightened at the mention of Arya’s presence._

_Bella stepped around Gendry and to within a couple of feet of Arya’s space. “You really thought my brother would kill yours?I haven’t even known Gendry long as you, and I know he would never do that, no matter what high and mighty cunt gave the order.”_

_“Bella,” Gendry warned without turning around._

_“What?” she asked sharply, her head snapping back toward him. “She gets to call you stupid, but when she acts like she knows nothing, you’d say not a word?”_

_Arya decided she liked Bella very much.“I know how much he cared about me,” she replied, meeting Bella’s blue eyes with cold steel, “and I know how much I hurt him.I didn’t know what he would do.”_

_Gendry rounded on them so quickly Bella had to jump out of the way as he glared down at her.Arya looked back at him unflinchingly as he said, “_ Cared _about you? I told you I love you and I meant it.I’m not a liar.And the joke’s fucking on me because you couldn’t give two shits about me.You wanted to use me like all the rest of them.You really are just another rich girl.”_

_White hot rage burned within Arya’s gut as Gendry’s words stung like shards of ice pelting her skin. What had once been said with teasing affection was spoken with disdain.She barely heard Bella mutter something about washing her hands as Arya hastened after Gendry’s retreating back._

_“I never used you!” she yelled at him, unable to completely contain her anger._

_Gendry stopped and turned so suddenly Arya nearly ran straight into his chest.“You did,” he replied simply, his calm reply angering her further._

_“How?How did I possibly use you?”_

_Gendry laughed mirthlessly and sneered down at Arya.“You don’t even know,” he said, shaking his head.“That’s how I know you’re just another fucking high born; some things just don’t even cross your mind.”_

_He turned away from her and ducked into his tent.She followed and found him tossing blankets to the ground and flipping over the bloodied mat on his cot._

_“What hasn’t crossed my mind?” she demanded._

_Gendry’s mouth was set into a thin line when he turned to face her.“Well, for starters, only a lord or a_ lady _would come swanning into a forge preparing for a siege and demand a custom weapon,” he explained with a little too much brightness in his voice._

_A tightly wound string snapped in Arya and she pointed a finger at him accusingly and yelled, “Don’t you fucking_ dare _pretend you did that because I’m a lord’s daughter!”_

_“It doesn’t matter why I did it.It matters that you came in demanding like the spoiled rich girl you are!”_

_“How dare—”_

_“How dare I?” Gentry cut her off, leaning into her eye level.“Do you have any idea what could happen to me if anyone found out what we did?I could lose my hands or my balls.And all it would take is one word from you, and I’d lose my head as a raper. One word, and everyone would believe it just because of who your father was, and the fact that he was married to your mother.”_

_Arya shoved him hard in the chest and he stumbled back from her slightly.“I would never do that to you!” she yelled, feeling like they had somehow become children lost in the Riverlands once again._

_Gendry took a breath and his shoulders slumped slightly. Quietly, he said, “I know. I know you wouldn’t. But you have that power. Would you really want to be with someone you had that much power over? Though I suppose you don’t want anyone at all, do you?”_

_“I’m just a cold little bitch, is that it?”_

_“Not the only person who thinks that,” he replied, his voice painfully dark and quiet. “You left him to die. I suppose I should be grateful you just fucked me because I happened to be passing by.”_

_Arya was shaking. She wanted to strike him, but she was angry and unfocused. She didn’t possess the raw strength to hurt him like she wanted, and she knew she wouldn’t be fast enough to strike him more than once. “Why-“ she began, her voice quavering, “why would you think that? Why would you think you meant nothing to me?”_

_His brows furrowed and his mouth twisted in disgust. “You said no,” he replied flatly._

_“You stupid, stupid bull!” she exploded, beating her fists against his chest regardless of how useless the gesture ultimately was. “I told you why I said no! You should have known! You should have fucking known by now!”_

_Gendry grabbed her wrists and, as Arya suspected, he was strong enough to hold her back. “Oh, you’re not a lady?” he mocked. “You’re certainly very good at bossing people about for not being a lady.”_

_With a growl, Arya pushed him away. “That’s not all a lady is!” she shouted._

_“How would I know that? The only lady I’ve ever known is you!” he bellowed in return._

_They were both breathing heavily as they stared at one another, their chests heaving. Arya bit her lip and felt deeply annoyed that the Hound was right. Gendry didn’t know what he was asking. Why would he?_

_Gendry took a deep breath and found Arya’s eyes with his own. “Lyanna Mormont was a lady; she killed a giant with her dying breath. Brienne of Tarth may be a knight now, but she never pushed anyone in the dirt for addressing her as the lady she’s always been.Your sister may wear pretty dresses, but she came out of the crypts with a dagger in her hand and she can cower a grown man with a raised eyebrow.”_

_Arya chuckled at that.Gendry’s voice had grown softer as he came closer.She could feel the warmth radiating off of him, and his large hands came softly to the sides of her face and she greatly wanted to melt into it._

_“Your sister keeps her people fed and protected,” Gendry continued.“That’s what you did for me and Hot Pie all those years ago.Isn’t that what a lord or lady should be?”_

_Arya shook her head and stepped back from him.His hands fell from her face and he looked hurt; no longer angry, just pained. “Do you know what all those ladies have in common? They’re not married.”_

_A wrinkle formed between Gendry’s eyebrows.“You think I wanted to lock you in a tower?Why would I ever want that?”_

_“I can’t be what you need,” Arya answered through gritted teeth._

_“Maybe I get to choose what I need myself,” Gendry said, closing the distance between them again and taking her face in his hands.“Have I not earned that right?”_

_Arya sighed.She was very tired of this fight, and she needed him to understand.Her hands went to her sword belt and she started to unbuckle it. Gendry stiffened before her and his hands tried to pull hers away. She shook him off and hissed, “Keep your bloody pants on.”_

_Gendry audibly grumbled and clenched his fists as he stepped back from her. Arya found a spot on the ground and trained her eyes on it as she tossed the belt aside and began undoing the laces of her jerkin.“I ran away from the Brotherhood after they sold you, and the Hound took me instead.He was going to sell me back to Mother and Robb.He was too late, but not late enough.I saw what they did to Robb’s body after they killed him.I think it killed a part of me too.”_

_Gendry’s fists loosened as the color drained from his face._

_“After Brienne nearly killed the Hound, I used the coin Jaqen gave me to go to Braavos.”_

_Gendry’s eyes narrowed angrily at the mention of Jaqen’s name, so she evidently did not need to remind him who that was.“I was taken to the House of Black and White and I trained as a Faceless Man,” she said as she finished the laces of her jerkin and began to pull her shirt out of her trousers.“While I should have been growing into a woman, I was being beaten, starved, poisoned—”_

_“Poisoned?”_

_Arya paused.“Meryn Trant was in Braavos, and I killed him against their wishes.They blinded me and I lived for months after as a blind beggar in the streets.”_

_Gendry’s fists balled again at his sides and face reddened with anger.Arya smirked in return.“It wound up being their mistake.They trained me with a staff while I was blind, and now it’s the weapon I’m best at.It’s why I asked you to make me that weapon.”_

_Gendry nodded silently, not quite meeting her eyes._

_“When I tried to leave for good, they gave me these,” she continued, lifting up her shirt to remind him of the scars across her abdomen.His eyes were locked on them as they had been that night in Winterfell.“I’d only bled once or twice before then, probably because of the lack of food, or stress, and I’ve only bled two or three times since then, and it was over a year ago.”_

_He shook his head.“Why are you telling me this?”_

_She dropped the hem of her shirt and rolled her eyes.“Gods, you’re so stupid,” she groaned.“Not that I really wanted them, or anything, but I can’t give you children.”_

_If anything, Gendry looked even more confused.“Why should that matter?”_

_Arya blinked.“A-a lord should have heirs,” she stuttered, surprised by his answer._

_“I’m just a lord because someone said so,” he shrugged.“I don’t want to be used in someone else’s game anymore.”_

_She looked at her spot on the ground again.“You always wanted a family,” she said, surprising herself with the smallness of her own voice._

_Too many seconds passed and she was almost worried he had left before she felt one of his fingers hooked beneath her chin, pulling her face to look up at him._

_“You could be my family.”_

_Gendry’s eyes were wide, and hopeful, and wet with unshed tears. Part of her was screaming to push him away and never look back. But her hands were already hooked into his vest and were pulling him to her. Their lips crashed together as indecorously as they had that first night in Winterfell, but the rhythm was much easier to find this time._

_“I’m going to kill Cersei,” she told him, attempting to sound matter-of-fact while almost completely breathless._

_“I know,” he replied between peppered kisses along her face and neck as he pushed the jerkin from her shoulders._

_“I’ll probably die in the attempt.”_

_He laughed as she helped him out of his vest. “You’re just as likely to be trampled by a horse.”_

_She wanted to chide him for his optimism, but most thoughts left her mind entirely as his fingers ghosted along her scars and his thumb brushed along her nipple until it became a hardened peak._

* * *

“Momma!”

Arya responded to her son’s loud summons with something that was between a growl and a groan. Davos was clearly unfazed by this lackluster response as he began to shake her shoulders as he continued, “Momma, did you know Uncle Jon is here? Did you know my room is Uncle Jon’s room? That’s Ghost. He likes me.”

Arya cracked her eyes and looked past her son’s wild mop of hair to the white dire wolf that had settled in her doorway. She slowly sat up and pushed away the furs. Her roiling stomach and her interrupted dream were enough to make her wish she had been right when she told Gendry she could never have children. Almost.

“Yes, little wildling, I know all of those things. Except that Ghost likes you, although I’m not surprised. Most creatures find you very enjoyable.”

Davos smiled proudly. “I know.”

“If I were a decent mother, I would tell you to just say “thank you” when someone pays you a compliment.”

Davos giggled and Arya grabbed his face to kiss his head.He pulled a face and said, “Ugh! Momma, your breath _stinks!”_

_Vomiting repeatedly would do that,_ Arya thought ruefully.“Well, if I wasn’t awakened by a rude little boy, I would smell better right now.”

“No, you wouldn’t.You’d still be asleep,” Davos said, tilting his head and looking at her as though she was quite dumb.

Arya rolled her eyes.“Go away, child, and let me clean myself up,” she told him.

“Alright,” Davos said brightly, completely unaffected by the annoyance in Arya’s voice.“I’m going to give Uncle Jon his room back.”

“Jon can sleep in a hut in the Land of Always Winter,” Arya said, cracking her back.“I think he can survive without his childhood bedroom for a while.”

“But…it’s his,” Davos stated.

“Fine, but don’t bother the servants with your whims,” she told him.“Move your things yourself.”

Davos nodded enthusiastically before running out of the room as Ghost padded after him.Arya shook her head and began readying herself for the day.After washing her mouth out thoroughly, she dressed and pulled her hair back.Her fingers brushed along the raven scrolls she’d received from her husband and smiled.She had dreamt of the night they had made their firstborn likely because Sandor was competing in an archery tournament in Kings Landing.She had trained him since he was smaller than Davos, and his ability to shoot was better than hers had been at his age.He didn’t have to deeply consider his aim before he let loose.He trusted his ability in a way Arya did not before she went to Braavos.He was still not very good at hunting, however.He’d grown over a foot in a year and had about as much finesse as his father when it came to controlling his body, which was not an asset when stalking prey.

She finished dressing and made her way through the castle to the family solar.She found Jon in the family solar.He’d shed his wilding furs for leathers more appropriate to a Northern summer.His eyes were trained to a spot above the fireplace and a wrinkle rested between his brows.

Arya smiled proudly as she followed his gaze and moved to stand next to him.

“Is it a replica?” he asked.

“No, it’s _Ice_ ,” Arya told him.“You know Tywin Lannister had it melted down after The Red Wedding?”

Jon nodded gravely.

“It’s a bit of a circuitous story, but the two swords wound up going to Jaime Lannister and Ser Brienne,” Arya explained.“After…everything, Tyrion gave Jaime’s sword to Brienne before she left for Casterly Rock.A few years ago, she gave them both to Gendry to reforge.”

“He knows how to reforge Valyrian steel?” Jon asked.

“He wasn’t sure enough at the time to try it with my family’s sword,” Arya confessed.“He’d learned a long time ago that his old master Tobho Mott had gone back to Volantis after the Goldcloaks nearly burned his face off.Mott knows how to reforge Valyrian steel, so Gendry finished his apprenticeship and all of us presented Sansa with it on her name day three years ago. She didn’t cry.I was very disappointed.”

Jon raised an eyebrow at her.“You just let him go off to Volantis?”

Arya mimicked his expression.“No.I’d never been to Volantis.So, we all went.If you want to know what an adventure really is, take a long sea voyage with three children.”

He shook his head and grinned.“Can’t believe Davos let you all just leave again.When you left for the West, he sent message to me beyond the Wall, he was so worried.”

“Davos is older now, and he approaches Gendry and I with fond resignation,” she explained.“It’s Bella we had to worry about.She told us if we weren’t back in three months, she would declare herself Storm Queen.And if we ever showed our faces, we’d be living in the stables.”

“Not the forge?”

“That wouldn’t be much of a punishment for _all_ of us, would it?”

“Suppose not.It does sound like something she’d say, though.”

Arya wanted to agree, but the fondness in Jon’s voice about her good sister made her chest tighten.She covered with a tight smile, and turned to leave the room.Jon followed her easily, and said, “How is Bella, anyway?”

“She’s well,” Arya answered shortly, blinking as they entered the courtyard.“She has three children now, which means with our three children as well it's never quiet at Storm’s End.”

“She doesn’t live with her husband?”

“Bella doesn’t have a husband.”

“Oh,” Jon said, sounding disappointed.“So, her children are…”

“There are no bastards in the Stormlands,” Arya cut him off, turning to face him.“They are Baratheons, same as my blacksmith.Well, Steffon’s an Estermont, actually.”

Jon’s brows furrowed.“Isn’t Estermont who led the rebellion when you were in the West?”

“Yes,” Arya replied.“Bella used her very well-developed talents to prevent bloodshed, and has produced a young man we can trust to be heir to Greenstone.”

Jon shrugged and nodded.“You said she has three children?”

“The youngest is about four.His name is Tommen.She liked the name, we couldn’t stop her.”

“Well, Sansa did say he and his sister were perfectly lovely people.Didn’t he have a cat when they were here at Winterfell?”

Arya nodded.“Ser Pounce, I think it was.He was an obnoxiously sweet little boy.This Tommen is not quite so sweet, but he follows his uncle Davos around like a shadow,” she told him before taking a steadying breath.“The eldest is Rhae.She’s just a couple of months younger than Sandor.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, apparently there were a lot of people fucking at my wedding.”

Jon blushed deeply.  Arya knew why.  “You-you-you’re one to talk,” he finally managed.“You didn’t even make an appearance at your own feast.”

“I don’t like feasts,” she shrugged dismissively.“You know what I do like, though?”

“No, no, don’t tell me,” Jon said, waving his hands.“I’d like to continue living in happy ignorance.”

Arya grinned, and decided to blame the uneasiness of her gut on her unborn babe and not her conversation with Jon about her good-sister.She didn’t want to think about the lingering implications of her brother asking too many probing questions.She found a group of boys and girls from the castle gathered in the training yard with their bows waiting for her.She smiled genuinely.It was time to get to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading their fight as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Yes, there's a reason Arya is uneasy discussing Bella's life with Jon. *infomercial voice* Keep Reading to Find Out More.
> 
> A Gendry chapter is up next and I can say that because it is almost completely finished.


	7. Archers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For someone who only writes sex scenes as fade-to-black, I wrote an awful lot of people talking ABOUT sex in this chapter. People talk about sex and consequences and there’s an archery tournament. Also, all I know about medieval archery tournaments comes from the Errol Flynn Robin Hood movie, so...

It was a truly astonishing thing that Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark were such good friends.Ned was temperate and soft-spoken.Robert indulged in all pleasures as much as possible and let everyone in hearing distance know about it.One particular difference Gendry always found fascinating was that Robert loved competing in tournaments while Ned never competed at all. Robert liked to show off what he could do. Ned didn’t want a man he might potentially face in a real fight to have any inkling of what he could do. Gendry supposed he took after the only one of the two men he had actually met in that way. The peace on the continent wasn’t guaranteed. He didn’t want any of the Dornish knights or Bronn of the fucking Blackwater to study any weaknesses he might have.

He could never understand the point of jousting. The lances used in a real cavalry charge were quite different, if they were used at all. And his children were right: he’d never really learned to sit a horse properly. The melee reminded him too much of the chaos of The Long Night. Even fifteen years later, he would still wake up with nightmares from that fight. Archery was also out of the question. He could make any sort of arrowhead one could imagine, but his arms were not conditioned to the controlled strength of the bow. Sandor, however, had been trained with a bow from a very young age by Storm’s End’s master-at-arms: Arya Stark. Gendry supposed he might have been biased, but Arya was the best archer he had ever known, and she claimed Sandor would one day be better than her. Consequently, Gendry was sat in a royal box with a restless Shireen waiting for the beginning of the archery competition in the Great Council’s Tourney.

“Uncle Gendry!”

He stood and braced himself just in time to catch his nephew, Brian, up in his arms. “Careful, lad. You’re about big enough to knock me down. And I’m not your only uncle here.”

Brian looked over his shoulder as Gendry set him back down on his feet and noticed Bran for the first time. “Oh, um, hello, Uncle Bran,” the boy said, uncertainly holding out his hand.

Bran smiled serenely and shook his nephew’s hand. “Hello, Brian. I believe you will learn a lot from this competition today.”

Brian blinked and opened and closed his mouth like a fish trying to make a response. Gendry understood the unnerving effect Bran was having on the boy.

“Apologies for our tardiness, Your Grace.”

Gendry looked up to see Sansa approaching flanked by two guards and holding the hand of her youngest child. Her dress was Stark gray, but in a much lighter fabric than would have been worn in the North. The bells of her sleeves were sheer from the elbows down. A weirwood tree was stitched along one side of the dress, its branches extending across the neckline that revealed Sansa’s clavicle. She had forgone a crown, but a comb with crossed dire wolf heads was pinned into the braided bun atop her head as the rest of her fiery tresses fell in waves down her back. Even though Gendry had been both her equal in social standing and her brother by marriage for fifteen years, he still felt quite inadequate next to Sansa Stark, who was still the picture of grace and elegance in spite of being somewhat out of breath and the fussy four-year-old attempting to hide in her skirts. Gendry, on the other hand, still hadn’t managed to completely rid himself of his Flea Bottom accent.

“No need to apologize, Your Grace,” he replied, returning her formality. The competitors haven’t even been presented yet.”

Sansa smiled the smile meant for the other nobles in the box before she kissed her brother on the cheek and let go of her son’s hand to fuss over Shireen and her dress. The youngest Stark almost immediately ran for his brother and grasped Brian’s hand tightly.

“Theon, this is our uncle, Gendry,” Brian told his brother impatiently. “Sorry.He was like this with Aunt Arya too.”

“Well,” Gendry began, squatting down in front of his youngest nephew, “your Aunt Arya is a little bit terrifying. I’m a little scared of her myself.”

Theon offered him a small smile and loosened his hold on Brian ever so slightly.

“It is a wise man that is afraid of the She-Wolf of Storm’s End.”

Gendry straightened and found himself facing the Dornish princess, Arianne Martell. Olive skin, raven-black hair, and bright blue eyes marked her as a rare beauty even as she entered her mid-thirties. Despite the fact that her cousin, Quentyn, was called King of Dorne, all of Westeros knew that the true power lay in Dorne lay almost entirely in Arianne’s grasp.

“It is good to see you again, my lady,” Gendry said, placing a chaste kiss on the hand she offered him.

“You as well, Your Grace,” she answered. “Did you enjoy the wine I left you?”

“Um, yes. Probably a little too much,” he admitted, his ears warming at the hazy memory of fucking his wife in an alcove behind a tapestry like they had before they were married.

“Oh, well, as I understand it, Your Grace has a very discerning tongue for such things,” Arianne replied, a sly smirk pulling at her lips.

Gendry’s eyes widened involuntarily as he swallowed thickly. “I, um, not really,” he stuttered. “I’ve not much experience with fine wine.”

“Not according to your wife,” Arianne continued. “She claims you have a very talented tongue.In fact, I wouldn’t mind if you shared those talents with me.”

Arianne Martell had always been bold with her desires. Gendry was grateful all of the children were too young to truly catch her meaning. Sansa, however, had a hand over her mouth to hide a grin and a small smile that looked like amusement had even settled across Bran’s lips, which was the most emotion Gendry had ever seen from him.

For his own part, Gendry was sure his face was beet red as he replied, “My wife is quite jealous of those talents and also quite good with a knife.”

Arianne smirked. “Oh, I would have your wife as well.”

Gendry choked on his own breath in reply. Arianne simply gave him a self-satisfied smile before she nodded an acknowledgment toward Bran and discreetly congratulated Sansa on her happy news. Gendry felt the sting of annoyance that Arianne could be discreet about things when she chose to.He also felt the sharp stab of Arya’s absence. It had been two months since she left for Winterfell, and he missed her in every way.

“Are you alright, Unca Gendy?” a small voice asked.

Gendry looked down to see little Theon looking up at him with the Stark gray eyes that he loved so much. He smiled at the boy, glad he was speaking at all, and said, “I just miss your aunt.”

Theon nodded as though he understood and slid his hand into Gendry’s much larger calloused one. “You can hold my hand until you feel better,” Theon told him matter-of-factly.

“Thank you, lad, thank you very much.”

...

 

Gendry was honestly very glad Arianne was placed on the other end of the royal box. He knew she was used to men falling at her feet, but Gendry had been accused of infidelity before and he hated the suspicion. His father probably still had bastards that the Lannisters missed. Gendry had often wondered how many women had even actually wanted the Fat King’s attentions. It was not something he ever wanted to be, or be seen as.

Gilly, Jon, and the smaller Tarlys arrived just before the competitors were presented. They were seated behind the attending monarchs and high lords. Attendance, however, was light due to the fact that the more popular melee had started only half an hour earlier. The promise of gore and violence was apparently more appealing than the promise of a show of skill. Admittedly, the competition was a bit boring at the beginning. Ten competitors would take five shots and the judges would eliminate those with the lowest points. Sandor was in the second grouping, and Gendry was starting to doze off.

“Will you take Princess Arianne up on her offer?” Sansa whispered conspiratorially.

Gendry’s head snapped toward her. “Why would you even ask such a thing?”

“I’m a bit bored,” Sansa admitted demurely. “Honestly, I don’t think Arya would mind as long as she was invited and she got to have you last.”

“That’s-that’s...” Gendry was at a loss for a high born phrase to tell Sansa off. Moments later, he realized he was focused on the wrong Stark.

“You’ve done it before.”

Gendry turned his head slowly to find Bran staring back with a frustratingly blank expression. Sansa’s delicate hand digging into his shoulder brought his attention back to her. Rather than looking scandalized, the redhead was wearing a face of pure excitement.

“You and Arya have lain with Arianne Martell?”

“No. No,” Gendry insisted, his voice low enough to approach the sound of a growl. “And will you keep your fucking voice down, Your Grace.”

Sansa spared a glance at all of their children who had their faces pressed between the rails to get a better view. The Queen in the North deflated a little, but continued, “If it wasn’t Arianne, then who was it? That Dornish lord? Dayne, right?”

“It was not Ned-fucking-Dayne,” Gendry replied through clenched teeth. The young Lord of Starfall had been quite chivalrous in drunkenly asking Arya to run away with him eight years earlier. The fact that Arya was laughing nearly uncontrollably as she told him about it hadn’t made Gendry want to throw the man off of the top of Storm’s End’s tower any less. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

“Then what was it like?” Sansa hissed.

“It was a fertility ritual,” Bran supplied.

“Do you go looking for these sorts of things?” Gendry asked, his tone blazing. “You would be the worst shit in the world.”

Bran was unaffected by Gendry’s insult. His eyes were solely focused on the lady taking her turn on the field. “You wouldn’t be alone in thinking that.”

Some of the fire leaked from Gendry’s veins at the sad look in Bran’s eyes. He followed Bran’s gaze to the woman on the field and then turned to Sansa with a questioning look. She replied, “Lady Reed. She went beyond the Wall with Bran, Hodor, Summer, and her brother. Only she and Bran returned.”

From what Arya had told him, her brother had never really returned to Winterfell at all. Seeing the way Bran watched Lady Reed, however, Gendry thought there might still be some of Brandon Stark left in the Three Eyed Raven.He was focused solely on her shooting and Gendry could make out regret and affection in equal parts in the younger man’s eyes.Lady Reed was also quite excellent with the bow.Her arrows were grouped together tightly and the fifth even split the first.The spectators applauded when she finished and Bran actually joined them.When the next archer stepped forward, Bran turned his head toward Gendry and said, “You had been gone almost a year, and your sister and Ser Davos had heard nothing from you since you made landfall.They were concerned and asked me to find you.If you think I wanted to find my sister with a stranger’s mouth at her cunt, you grossly mistaken.”

Gendry felt his ears redden.“She wasn’t a stranger to us,” he muttered before he more clearly said, “Thought you might be a bit beyond embarrassment.”

“I can still remember what it was like to be Brandon Stark,” he replied matter-of-factly and without looking back.

Nails began digging into Gendry’s forearm and he exclaimed, “Gods! Ow! What?”

“Explain,” Sansa replied slowly, squeezing his arm before letting go.

He huffed before taking a deep breath and said, “We had actually been trying before we even set sail.It was surprising because, well…”

“My sister was pregnant at her own wedding,” Sansa finished, sounding bored.“Yes, I know.Do go on.”

“Arya thought she couldn’t become pregnant after what happened to her in Braavos.We thought we might have just gotten a bit lucky with Sandor,” he continued quietly.“When we met the people in the West, they were very open to us.They sheltered us, and taught us about plants and metals we’d never seen before.When we’d gotten a bit better at communicating, they wondered why Arya and I only had the one child, and then they invited us to a ritual to help.We didn’t really know the details of what was about to happen until it was happening and, well, neither of us really minded.”

Sansa scoffed.“Of course you didn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that you are a man and that Arya has never really cared for the strictures of polite society.”

Gendry rolled his eyes at her judgmental tone.“Well, it worked,” he said, gesturing to Shireen as she giggled at something Jeyne Tarly told her.“And while making children might be a bit more…public than it is here, bringing a child into the world is just between the parents.”

Sansa stared at him with wide eyes.“I thought Arya was exaggerating when she said you pulled Shireen into the world.”

“Arya did most of the work,” he shrugged.“Told me she knew what she needed to do and let her body do it.”

Sansa’s implacable mask had fallen into place. “I should hate for Tristran to see all of me in such a state.”

“You and your sister differ in more than just height and hair color,” Gendry teased. “I thought it would always be so simple. And then, with Davos...”

Sansa’s hand on his arm was comforting this time.“It’s not your fault what happened to Arya,” she told him.“It’s no one’s fault.”

“What happened after was certainly my fault,” Gendry grumbled, looking away from his good-sister.His eyes found Arianne Martell staring at him with a smirk on her face.He inhaled sharply and squared his shoulders.“Could you possibly keep that woman away from me for the rest of the Council?”

“I’ll add it to my extensive list of duties,” Sansa said with a teasing huff.“Although you know Arianne is only propositioning you so she can say she’s had both the She-Wolves’ husbands at one time or another?”

“It was nearly twenty years ago that Tristran met Arianne in Essos, and thank you for the compliment.”

Sansa rolled her eyes.“Don’t be so stupid.”

“What is it with the Stark women and the need to call me ‘stupid?’”

“It probably has something to do with the things that come out of your mouth,” Sansa replied primly, facing forward.“Arianne wants power in Dorne.”

“She has it.”

“But she is not the queen,” Sansa reminded him, “and there are a fair number of people who think she should be.But she still needs allies, willing or otherwise to overthrow Quentyn at this point.He is innocuous, not evil.It’s not so easy to seize power from someone who is just…there.”

“You have a much greater understanding of all that shit than I do,” he muttered truthfully. “I don’t care about her reasons, I’d just prefer not to be around her.”

“If you’re concerned about Arya, I’m sure she’ll laugh at what Arianne proposed.”

“I’m sure she will too. I’m not worried about Arya. I’m worried about what the rest of these people will say. I’ve been accused of infidelity once and that was enough.”

Sansa shook her head. “Gendry, you didn’t even know the maid who accused you.”

“You know, that’s what made it worse,” Gendry said turning his head to look at his good sister.“I had become the sort of master I had despised; one that didn’t even know the people I was meant to be leading.I was so involved in my own imagined grief, I nearly lost everything.I feel like I did lose a year of my life.”

“What happened to that maid, anyway?” Sansa asked, her voice too bright as she was obviously trying to change the subject.“I’ve heard everything from lashes to hot pokers.”

Gendry scrunched up his face.“Gods, nothing so bad as that,” he said.“I did get Bella to admit to punching the girl in the face when she confessed to lying about sleeping with me just to play on suspicions she assumed Arya already had. It turned out the maid had never been pregnant at all.Bella would have been within her rights to have her flogged.If Arya had been there, I’m sure she would have done much worse, but Bella simply had all the castle’s staff line up, and they all turned their backs on her as she was marched out of the gates.Her lies cost her everything, including friendship.”

Sansa’s eyebrows raised in approval.“Creative punishment.”

“Bella’s good at finding creative solutions to problems.”

“So I’ve heard,” Sansa replied, smirking.

Gendry rolled his eyes, and was very grateful with Sandor’s group of archers began their round.Sandor won the first round easily.The margin became smaller with each successive round and Gendry found himself leaning closer to the edge of his seat with every arrow his son loosed.Eventually, the final round came down to Sandor and Lady Reed.

The melee had ended with a requisite amount of gore—a couple of severed limbs, but no fatalities—and a surprising winner: young Brynden Tully.Consequently, the stands at the archery competition had started to fill up.Even the royal box was more full.Tristran and Young Ned had joined Sansa from the melee, and the golden-haired specter of Joanna Lannister appeared with her guardian, Ser Brienne of Tarth.

Mother, Gendry silently corrected himself.Should anyone think otherwise, Ser Brienne is Joanna’s mother.

Joanna curtsied to Sansa, and expressed regret for choosing to attend the melee due to the blood and violence.Gendry had to admit the poor girl did look a little green. Sansa offered some platitude about experience and teachers, and Joanna nodded politely.She whispered something to Brienne and the taller woman smiled and nodded.Joanna briefly bounced on the balls of her feet before bounding over to where the children had their faces pressed to the rails to get the best view.Brienne and Sansa shared an amused smile before the knight took a seat with the Tarlys.

The competition was down to just Sandor and Lady Reed.With every loosed arrow, Gendry felt every muscle in his body tighten and he moved further forward in his chair.His son, on the other hand, was the picture of calm composure.Clearly, Sandor had learned that trait from his mother, and Gendry desperately wished she could have been there to see what their son was accomplishing.Sandor and Lady Reed took their five shots and while they did not all land in the same exact areas of their targets, the grouping was so close, the judges required them to take another shot.Sandor split one of his arrows.Lady Reed did not.

Joanna was on her feet cheering before Gendry’s tensed muscles allowed him to stand and join in the applause.He was vaguely aware of Tristran clapping him on the shoulder as the children at the rail scattered to allow Bran to be wheeled forward.Sandor clasped Lady Reed’s forearm and she smiled back at him, but when her eyes met Bran’s, her smile became a scowl.Sandor was unaware of any of this as he beamed up at them.

“Well shot, Nephew,” Bran said, voice flat as ever, though the beginnings of a smile appeared on his lips.

“Thank you, Uncle.”

“Your prize, young prince,” Bran said formally, motioning for his guard to hand a leather sack of coins over the railing.

Sandor took his prize and bounced it lightly in the hand not holding his bow.He looked Gendry in the eyes and winked.The smile on Gendry’s face faded as his son stepped away from the dais.The rash and mischievous streak that had once lived in young Arya had a tendency to display itself in their children at the most inconvenient times.

“My name is Sandor Baratheon,” he said in a clear voice, loud enough for those gathered in the stands to hear the echoes.“I am heir to the Stormlands, but I am of the North as well,” he paused to smile toward his aunt.“My father grew up as an orphan in this city, and there are still orphans like him on every street.”

Gendry’s very breath shook and tears began to fill his vision as he watched his son make the short trek to the stands where a septa stood, apparently waiting for him.

“For the orphans of this city,” he said, placing the sack in her hands.“The North remembers, and so do I.”

Gendry had never heard a jubilant cheer so loud as the one that erupted as his son finished speaking. Tears were making tracks down his face, but he didn’t wipe them away for fear of drawing attention to himself. Sansa, on the other hand, was openly weeping.

“Are you all right?” Gendry asked, practically yelling over the din.

“It’s the babe’s fault,” Sansa excused, furiously wiping at her eyes. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Gendry saw Tristran chuckle at his wife before coming closer. “You need to stop raising such thoughtful children. You’ll make the rest of us look bad.”

Gendry laughed at the jest, but his mind was drawn back to the moment he found out he was going to be a father, and how utterly uncertain everything seemed.

* * *

 

_A sickening crack filled the air quickly followed by gasps and groans of commiseration with the man bleeding from his nose on the frozen ground.Gendry knew he was gaping like a fish, but he honestly had no idea where to look between the woman he was about to marry and the man he had so recently befriended.Tristran had won their duel with a feint Gendry had seen Arya use before.She broke his nose with Needle’s hilt rather than yield as she would have had Tristran been Podrick or Brienne._

_“Arya!”_

_Sansa’s voice sounded childish to Gendry’s ears, as if Arya had just broken her favorite toy.Arya’s response was no less childish as she turned on her sister with her eyes blazing and her teeth bared with her breaths coming and going in hisses. She reminded him greatly of a skinny little shit that used to dog_ _his steps very many years earlier on the Kingsroad. Arya stomped past the gathered crowd without so much as a glance in his direction, Needle still clutched tightly in her hand._

_Everyone’s attention had suddenly shifted entirely to Sansa, who seemed stuck in the middle of the courtyard, unsure whether she should go to Tristran, or stay with the spectators as Samwell Tarly examined the injured man._

_“You need to go after her.”_

_Gendry turned to find the owner of the voice was Sam’s wife—Gilly, he thought her name was.She was looking up at him with her mouth curved into a frown and her eyebrows arched almost imperiously.They had never spoken before, and he had no idea why she was advising him on what he should do._

_“Beg pardon?”_

_“Arya. Go after her.She needs you.”_

_Gendry scoffed.“Arya doesn’t need anyone.”_

_Gilly rolled her eyes and huffed in response.With her fists on her hips, she said, “She does, actually.Now, go!”_

_Something in the sternness of her expression reminded Gendry of his earliest memories of his mother and he found himself moving in the direction Arya had gone without ever really deciding to do so.He spared a glance backward to find Sansa had made the decision to kneel at Tristran’s side and hold his hand as Samwell popped his nose back into place._

_He caught up with Arya as she made her way to her chamber.She didn’t respond when he called out to her, and he had to catch the door to her room to keep it from hitting him in the face.He closed it gently and watched as she angrily tossed Needle to the floor and yanked her gloves off to be tossed in the opposite direction.She was pacing back and forth, her breaths still coming through clenched teeth.He had learned quite recently that approaching an angry wolf was a terrible idea, so he decided to pick up her sword and place it gently on the small table before the fire rather than approach her._

_“Too slow,” he heard her mutter as she paced back and forth in front of her bed. “I’m too fucking slow now.Gods, I’m too fucking slow now.I can’t-I can’t do this.”_

_Gendry’s brow furrowed as he watched her huff and run her fingers through her hair, loosening it further from its bonds and making it stick out wildly.“You think you lost because you’re too slow?” he asked._

_“I didn’t lose!” she bit back, turning on him, her hands bunched into fists at her sides.“He cheated.”_

_“Cheated? Arya, he switched hands and used his dagger.You do that all the time.”She glared at him, but said nothing, which meant she couldn’t meet his argument.He checked to make sure she didn’t have anything sharp she could throw at him and continued, “You didn’t lose because you were too slow.You lost because you underestimated him.”_

_Arya’s nostrils flared and her eyes widened.Gendry would have found it a comical expression on a woman he didn’t know so well._

_“Underestimated him?What is there to estimate?He’s just some foreigner who wants to fuck my sister!”_

_He rolled his eyes.It was what the whole castle thought of Tristran Maegyr, and Gendry thought Arya was better than to just repeat what everyone else was saying.“You know nothing about him or what he can do.He trained with a staff and a sword in Volantis since he was six. He only picked up your Water Dancing a few years ago when he was working for the Iron Bank in Braavos,” he told her, relaying some of the information he’d gathered from the conversations he’d shared with Tristran over their morning meals in the last week.“And he doesn’t want to just fuck your sister.”_

_“How do you know any of that?”_

_“Because, unlike you, I didn’t form an opinion of the man based on where he was from and who his sister was,” Gendry told her, trying to keep the volume of his voice from rising. “Tristran would marry your sister tonight if he could, but, Queen in the North or not, he knows her lords will never let her marry him. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to want someone you shouldn’t.”_

_Arya’s shoulders slumped slightly and some of the tension drained from her body, but her fists remained tight at her sides._

_Encouraged by her lack of complete hostility, Gendry continued, “You didn’t lose to Tristran because you’re too slow, or not skilled enough, or some nonsense like that. You lost because you...well, you think you’re invincible.”_

_He didn’t regret saying it. It was true enough given how Arya had approached Tristran and challenged him. But Gendry was more than a little afraid of the sudden storm that appeared in her gray eyes at his words._

_“Got a big head, is that it?” she mocked._

_“If you say so,” he replied flatly, folding his arms across his chest._

_“Well, I saved your life, haven’t I?” she sneered at him._

_“Loads of times. Half of them, you never even drew a weapon. You’re more than just a fighter, and you’re not infallible.”_

_“I have to protect myself,” Arya insisted, her anger nearly sounding like panic. “Only I can do it!”_

_Gendry felt as though he had been slapped. “I thought we might be able to protect each other. I thought that’s what marriage was supposed to be.”_

_She turned away from him with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. “You can’t protect me.”_

_She might as well have kicked him for how wretched he felt at her words. “Well,” he began shakily, “I suppose it’s good to know how little you think of me now, rather than finding out years later.”_

_He turned toward the door intent on escaping before his heart ripped in two._

_“Gendry, stop. That’s not what I meant.”_

_“Then what did you mean?” he yelled as he rounded on her, all intention of remaining calm completely forgotten. “Do you think me cowardly or useless?”_

_“No! Of course not!”_

_“Then why? What have I done wrong?” he begged, willing himself not to shake her shoulders in his anger. “Why are you so certain that you and only you are capable of protecting yourself?”_

_“Because I’m pregnant!”_

_Gendry felt both weightless and heavy, as though he was falling and floating at the same time. Several images passed through his mind at once: the moment he saw Arya again, telling off the Hound for mistreating him, a little girl with bright blue eyes and Arya’s nose swinging a wooden sword around, the Red Keep crumbling in a mess of green fire, a woman whose face he didn’t know screaming on a bed covered in bloody sheets, that smirk Arya gave him before she kissed him the first time. And then he remembered what she said that night in his tent before King’s Landing when she told him she couldn’t give him children: “I never wanted any.”_

_“Gendry?”_

_Her voice sounded so soft and unsure. He didn’t know when she came to be standing so near him with her hands wrapped gently around his wrists. The expression she wore was one he hadn’t seen in years: she was afraid. Gendry felt ashamed for putting that expression on her face._

_“I’m sorry,” he choked out._

_“Sorry?” Arya asked. “You’re sorry?”_

_“I-I-you said you didn’t want children, and I’ve forced this on you, and I...”_

_He lost his jumbled words entirely at the sound of Arya laughing._

_“What is so funny about this to you?”_

_“You thinking you’ve ever forced anything on me.”_

_Gendry groaned. “It’s not...You said you didn’t want children, and we never spoke about it after you asked me to marry you, and I-I would understand if you don’t want to keep—”_

_“Don’t lie to me,” Arya cut him off firmly, her hands holding either side of his face. “I know you too well. You would never understand that. But there is something I need you to understand. Look at me.”_

_He lifted his eyes to look into the wide storm within hers._

_“I love you, Gendry,” she told him resolutely, holding his face tightly between her palms. “I love you, and I know you, and I know that you’ve always wanted a family. I would never knowingly take your family from you because I love you. Do you understand?”_

_“Yes. Yes, I understand,” he replied, wrapping his arms around her middle and pulling her close. Her arms circled his neck and he buried his face in the crook of her neck._

_He had no idea how long they stood in the middle of the room just holding one another. Gendry almost felt as though he might not be able to breathe again if he was not holding her._

_“Are-are you certain?” he asked, backing away just enough to look at her with his hands still on her waist._

_She nodded, a small smile gracing her lips.“After I was sick again this morning, I spoke to Gilly.”_

_“Gilly?” he said, the reasons for the woman to be ordering him about in the courtyard suddenly making much more sense._

_Arya shrugged with her hands still on his shoulders.“I don’t know Maester Wolkan.He might have run and told Sansa for all I know.I’m sure Sam would turn into an incomprehensible mess at the notion of his best friend’s youngest sister possibly being pregnant. Gilly has read almost every book Sam did in the Citadel, and unlike the other two, she has actually had a child and is about to have another one.I thought she wouldbe a better authority on the subject.I tried to explain away tiredness and the sickness.I told her that I had bled not long after everything that happened in King’s Landing.You…you were still unconscious.”_

_One of her hands drifted to his right side where a wound from an Unsullied spear had started to turn into a scar he would likely bear for the rest of his life._

_“The bleeding didn’t last long, and it wasn’t much.Gilly told me that’s what happens when the babe takes hold in the womb.I haven’t bled since.More than all of that, I just…know.”_

_Gendry chuckled as he smoothed some of the wilder strands of Arya’s hair from her face._

_“What?”_

_“Oh, I just think it’s funny you fell pregnant the same night you told me you couldn’t have children.”_

_She rolled her eyes and huffed dramatically.“Yes, I find the daily urge to vomit highly amusing.”_

_Gendry winced inwardly.“I’m sorry about that,” he apologized, genuinely regretful she had to go through so much pain.“Will you be alright?”_

_“Gilly seems to think so,” she told him.“This isn’t that remarkable, you know? Women have children every day.”_

_The lightness in her tone did little to comfort him and instead made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.“Women die while having children every day as well,” he reminded her grimly._

_Arya looped her arms more tightly around his neck and pressed her body to his as she smiled up at him. “I’m just as likely to be trampled by horse.”_

_“That’s not—I—”_

_It was just as well that Arya cut him off with a kiss since he had no idea how he was going to finish that sentence.He melted into her as he always did when she kissed him.He was hers.And somehow, miraculously, she was his._

_It had been almost a year since Davos found him in his shop.When he told the old man he had been waiting for something, Gendry thought it was just a fight, probably to his own death. But then there was Arya, a woman more fierce and beautiful than he had dared imagine in those moments when his thoughts turned toward the girl he had once known.She had taken him and broken him, and then they pieced one another back together in the rubble of a burning city.He hadn’t been waiting for a fight.He had been waiting for a life._

_Gendry wasn’t properly aware that they had moved until the back of his legs hit the bed and his hands left Arya’s body to catch himself into a sitting position.She climbed onto his lap as she pulled apart the laces of his jerkin._

_“Arya, wait,” he said, covering her hands with his own, “should we even…um…?”_

_She rolled her eyes and continued to pull on the laces as she said, “I was just as pregnant last night when you fucked me against a wall.I think my bed will be just fine.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> During season seven, when Gendry didn’t mention Arya at all even though at one point he’s in a scene with a bunch of dudes that know he knows her, I thought they were making the point that he had a character arc for himself. Sometimes individual characters can get lost in ‘ships (or in his case a boat ;-) And then season eight happened and he hardly interacted with anyone BUT Arya, and didn’t have a purpose beyond her character arc. 
> 
> Also, it was pointed out to me that I made an accidental reference to Skins with Gendry and Gilly’s friendship, so I decided to check out the show...FREAKING WARN A GIRL NEXT TIME.
> 
> Also, I had to post this from my phone because something’s wrong with the touchpad of my laptop.


	8. Living

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have never read the books, but I have read a lot ABOUT the books which is why I've referenced/included characters like Ned Dayne and Arianne Martell, but their backstories will be my own invention as I'm following what I know, which is the show-canon. But only to 8x04, because ugh.
> 
> We begin with a shake up to format as we start off with a flashback that is a continuation from the flashback in the previous chapter, just from Arya's perspective. There's also a flashback within a flashback, which might be confusing, but I have faith in you.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

_Arya was exhausted. Near-constant fatigue had become normal for her in the last few weeks accompanied by bursts of restless energy and a need to have Gendry inside of her. She was sated for the moment of her need of him, but she couldn’t find rest. She could feel the tension in his chest with her back pressed into him. His arms around her were just a bit too tight, and his breath against her neck was both too deep and too shallow._

_“What’s wrong?” she asked without turning to look at him._

_“Nothing.”_

_“Lie,” she replied, pinching the skin of his forearm._

_“Ow! Stop that!”_

_Arya twisted her body around until she was facing him and replied, “Then tell me the truth.”_

_“I...I...when you told me, I was just worried about you, but now I’m worried about what comes after.”_

_“After?”_

_“I don’t, I don’t know how to be a father,” he admitted quietly. “I never had anything like a father, and the one I had by blood was sort of...”_

_“A fat drunk who fucked everything with a cunt he came across?” Arya supplied._

_“Yeah, that,” Gendry groaned, turning away from her to lay on his back. “I don’t know if I can be a good father, and very much don’t want to become like my own.”_

_“You’re not like him,” Arya assured him, laying her head on his chest. “He’d already had dozens of women by the time he was your age, and you stopped at four.”_

_“My age,” he scoffed. “I don’t rightly know how old I am.”_

_“What?” she asked, looking up at him in shock._

_“I don’t my name day or anything,” Gendry said, shrugging slightly. “Don’t rightly know how old I was when my mum died or when I went to Mott’s shop. I could have been fourteen or maybe even seventeen when we met. There’s a lot of things I don’t know, actually.”_

_His tone held no malice or sorrow. Gendry was simply relaying facts about his life, and Arya felt ashamed. She thought the nights of going hungry or being unsure of her own survival meant she was the same as everyone else, but she truly had no idea. Even while the Faceless Men tried to strip away Arya Stark, she still knew how many days and months and years she had drawn breath. It was such a simple thing, and it was something Gendry had never known. She was painfully reminded of the Hound’s words to her on the road about how she had always been a lady, and Gendry would have had no notion of what he was asking when he begged her to be his._

_“Hey, don’t cry,” he said gently, brushing away the tears she hadn’t realized had formed._

_“Gods, I’ve only ever seen you cry because of me.”_

_She pushed away from him and said, “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not crying over you.” It wasn’t really a lie, although it wasn’t a truth either.She rose from the bed and pulled on a shirt from the pile of clothes on the floor. It must have been Gendry’s since it reached nearly to her knees. She could feel his eyes on her as she poked some life back into the fire. She turned to find him sitting up with his back against the headboard. She sat back down on top of the covers facing him with her outer thigh pressed against the good side of his torso._

_“My father used to say that being a lord was like being a father, and that you had to look after the people living in your lands the same way a father cared for his children.”_

_Gendry’s face scrunched up distastefully. “If I hadn’t met your father, I’d say he was being patronizing.”_

_“Perhaps, but I told you once that you would be a wonderful lord.” She pretended not to notice the way he flinched at the memory, and continued, “That’s how I know you’ll be a wonderful father as well.”_

_“Thought you were just saying that to soften the blow,” he said quietly, his eyes focused on the setting sun outside of her window._

_“I was,” she admitted. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”_

_Silence lingered between them. Finally, Gendry sighed, and with his eyes still trained on the horizon, said, “Do you want to name the child after him?”_

_Arya had only known for certain about the babe for half a day.She supposed she should have made a plan to tell Gendry.As it happened, she just told him in a moment of anger and frustration.She hadn’t thought about what would happen after the child was born. The thought of naming the child after her father left her with a strange feeling, as if somehow it was both the right and the wrong thing to do._

_She shook her head. “No, I think the next Ned should be a Stark,” she told him. “And since all of you Baratheons look alike, this child will probably not even look like a Stark.”_

_A crease formed between his brows. “That make you unhappy?”_

_Arya smirked and shook her head. “No, I quite like the way you look. Especially now that your hair has grown.”_

_Gendry tolled his eyes before he said, “What if it’s a girl?”_

_Arya looked down to where her fingers were twisted in the furs. “I hope it’s not. She’ll probably be like Sansa and hate me.”_

_Gendry reached out and wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. He pressed a kiss to her hair and said, “I think any daughter of ours would be just like you: some skinny little shit that’s an enormous pain in my arse.”_

_Arya smiled sweetly and pressed two of her fingers into his right side just beneath his scar. Every muscle in Gendry’s body seized as he cried out, “Fucking hells! Arya, stop it! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”_

_“Don’t call call me a little shit then.”_

_“I happen to like the fact that you’re a little shit most of the time,” Gendry replied with a groan. “Only a little shit would poke someone near a hole they nearly bled to death out of.”_

_Arya pursed her lips. She supposed he had a point. “Usually, you name a child after an ancestor or someone you want to honor,” she explained as though they’d never left the subject of their child’s name. “You had a grandmother called Rhaelle. No, she was a great-grandmother. A Targaryen by birth, I think.”_

_She felt a shiver pass through his body. “Best not name her that then.”_

_“Your grandmother’s name was Cassandra, no, Cassanna. Don’t know much about her,” she admitted sheepishly._

_“Well, you know a lot more about my family’s history than I do. You wouldn’t want to name her after your mother?”_

_Arya shook her head resolutely. “No. I don’t want to think about what happened to my mother every time I look at my daughter.”_

_His arms wrapped around her more tightly in an attempt to comfort her. She rested her head against his shoulder, and said, “What was_ your _mother’s name?”_

_She felt the muscles in his chest tense and looked up to find embarrassment written on his face. “I don’t know what her name was,” he told her. “I was so little and she was just...Mum.”_

_Arya once again felt a twinge of shame and wrapped her arms around his neck to offer some small form of comfort.They sat in silence as he rubbed small circles into her hip and pressed his palm against her calf._

_“What do you think…of Shireen?” he asked slowly._

_Arya looked up at him and found a distant and sad expression on his face. “Who was she?”_

_“My cousin; Stannis’s daughter.I met her once after they’d thrown me in the dungeon at Dragonstone.Said she wanted to see what one of her_ real _cousins was like.She had scars on her face from Grayscale when she was a baby, but she wasn’t hateful or angry.She was kind.”_

_Arya hadn’t failed to notice he only referred to her in the past tense.“What happened to her?”_

_“The Red Woman was going to burn me to ensure Stannis could be king or some bullshit, but Davos set me free.They couldn’t use the king’s blood in me, so they used hers.”_

_Arya tightened her hold on him, regretting the fact that she hadn’t had the chance to cross The Red Woman’s name off her list._

_“She died in my place,” he said quietly.“If we honor anyone in my family, it should be her.”_

_Arya nodded.“Yes.I like Shireen.”_

_The light from the window faded and the room darkened with only the fire in the hearth for illumination. His breathing was steady beneath her and she could tell he was nearly asleep. Something twisted in Arya’s chest that she knew wasn’t because of the child growing within her. There was someone she wanted to honor, though she doubted Gendry would feel the same way._

_“If it’s a boy, I think I’d like to call him Sandor.”_

_In the fading light, she could make out the confusion on Gendry’s face followed by the slow dawning of realization, and finally a brow furrowed in anger as he took Arya’s hips in his hands and pushed her off his lap far enough to look at her._

_“You want to name our child after the_ fucking _Hound?”_

_Arya nearly laughed at the enraged look on his face.“You object?”_

_“Of course I object! He only ever called me ‘twat.’ I doubt he even knew my name.”_

_“He knew you very well, actually.Said you were a fucking fool.”_

_“Oh, yes, that’s a great improvement on twat.”_

_“Said you were a fucking fool that had no idea what you were saying when you asked me to be your lady,” she continued with a smile.“Said you were a fucking fool that just wanted me.”_

_Gendry’s mouth twisted and he groaned.“Well, he wasn’t wrong about that,” he muttered, looking into her eyes._

_“He also said I must have a magic cunt for you to ask me to marry you after just fucking me once.”_

_Gendry laughed. It was a wild thing that started deep in his chest and split his face, his eyes almost disappearing in his smile.Arya realized that she had never seen him laugh with such abandon._

_“So, you want to name our son after the Hound because he told you you had a magic cunt?I know you’re a bit full of yourself, milady, but—”_

_“It would annoy him,” Arya interrupted._

_Gendry scoffed and shook his head. “That’s not why, Arya. Can’t you tell me what it was?”_

_..._

_They must have made a ridiculous sight running through the corridors of the Red Keep. She and Gendry were following Tyrion, who knew his way around the castle even as it crumbled.Tyrion, of course, couldn’t make excellent time, but Gendry was having trouble keeping pace with him, his breaths coming in labored puffs. Tyrion stopped to gain his bearings in the darkened hallway and Arya grabbed Gendry’s arm until he was looking at her._

_“I’m fine,” he said with a tired smile. “It’s just a scratch.Better than having my head caved in with my own hammer.Thank you for saving me.”_

_Arya shook her head at the utter sincerity in his voice, and pulled his face to hers and kissed him deeply._

_“You can fuck when you’re dead,” Tyrion hissed at them.“It’s this way.”_

_Arya kept Gendry’s hand in hers as they followed Tyrion into a part of the castle she recognized despite the destruction.Gendry’s grip tightened as his foot collided with a disembodied head._

_“Shit!Is that the fucking Mountain?”_

_“What’s left of him,” Tyrion said grimly._

_She heard a cough from the other side of the corridor and let go of Gendry’s hand, running around corpses and fallen debris until she reached him.She knelt in front of him to see what his vengeance had cost him.Blood was running from his eyes as if his brother had tried to crush his face like an egg.More blood and bile poured from a wound in his side with every heartbeat.But he was looking at her, a smirk on his lips._

_“Still alive, wolf-girl?” he croaked._

_Arya nodded._

_“My lady, we do not have much time,” Tyrion warned._

_“Your pet blacksmith still alive?”_

_“Arya?” Gendry said, kneeling next to her and answering the Hound’s question well enough himself._

_She looked at Gendry and smiled softly. “I need a moment.I know the way from here.”_

_“I’m not leaving you.”_

_“I’m not leaving you either,” she assured him.“I’ll be right behind you.I promise.”_

_She watched as doubt flickered across Gendry’s face before he put on a face of resolute acceptance and kissed her.He turned his head to look at the Hound and said, “I’m sorry.”_

_“Fuck off.”_

_Arya could feel Gendry roll his eyes even as he used the long handle of his hammer to stand back up. She waited to hear their retreating footsteps before she met the Hound’s gaze._

_“You gonna leave me to die again?”_

_She shook her head._

_“You gonna stab me in the eye so the blade comes out the back of my skull?”_

_She shook her head again.Deliberately, she removed the Catspaw from its sheath. She pressed the point to a weak spot in his armor, between the fourth and fifth ribs.She drew in a deep breath and prepared to push, but his hands were suddenly around her wrists and she looked into his face in surprise._

_“You finish your little list?”_

_“Yes,” she breathed._

_“Good.Don’t make another one.Someone will always wrong you, little wolf.Don’t live your life seeking vengeance for every wrong.Do that and you end up like me.You don’t want to end up like me.”_

_“No,” Arya admitted, realizing for the first time that she wanted something beyond her list and surviving the next moment._

_“Then keep fucking the damned blacksmith and live a life.Understand?”_

_“I understand,” she whispered before wrapping her fingers around the hilt of the catspaw and pressing it between the flesh and sinew and into his beating heart. He gasped and choked and stared into the emptiness.“Thank you, Sandor.”_

_Her hand paused on the hilt of the dagger in Sandor’s chest. That dagger had been sent to end Bran’s life.It had cut her mother’s hands. It started a conflict that took her father from her.She might have ended Little Finger and the Night King with it, but that would never be enough to balance the scale of destruction the dagger had caused.She left it in his chest and stood to her feet.The dagger would never cause harm to anyone else._

_…_

 

_She couldn’t meet his eyes, so unused to having to bare herself in such a manner.One of his large hands tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and lingered on her cheek._

_“Arya has the hands of a blacksmith,” Septa Mordane had once said.Arya smiled as she turned her head and kissed the heel of his palm.She supposed she really did have the hands of a blacksmith now._

_“All right,” Gendry relented.“But I hope it’s a girl.Honestly, we should call it Sandor even if it is a girl.That would really piss him off.”_

_Arya lifted herself to her knees and straddled his lap so she was looking down on him.His hands automatically went to her hips as she placed her hands on either side of his face.“It’s already decided.Shireen for a girl, Sandor for a boy.”_

_“As milady commands.”_

_A growl bubbled up from her throat and she kissed him hard, taking his lower lip between her teeth. He responded with a growl of his own and surged forward, kissing her with equal ferocity as he started to pull at the hem of the shirt she wore._

_A knock resounded at the door followed by, “Arya, it’s Gilly. I brought you some tea and supper.”_

_Arya pulled away from Gendry so suddenly that he toppled over as she gracefully rose from the bed. She took a moment to admire his partially exposed backside before she opened the door. She had to stifle a giggle at how Gendry scrambled to cover himself as Gilly entered the room. Gendry turned a truly ridiculous shade of red as he glared at Arya and his fists bunched around the furs. Gilly, however, was both unsurprised and unfazed at Gendry and Arya’s present state of undress as she came in bearing a tray laden with two bowls of stew, a pot of tea, and a round loaf of brown bread._

_“The tea is made with lemon and ginger,” Gilly addressed Arya. “It should help settle your stomach so you can keep the stew down. And eat plenty. You need to eat more for the babe as well as yourself. Brought enough for him too.”_

_“Thank you,” Gendry said through clenched teeth. Arya found herself smiling around the crust of bread in her mouth at his intense discomfort._

_“It was Jon’s idea. He thought you’d be here when you didn’t turn up for supper.”_

_Arya nearly choked when Gilly’s words reached her ears. “Jon said what?” she demanded when she found her breath._

_Her eyes darted between Gilly and Gendry. Gilly wore an expression of confusion while Gendry’s face could only be described as guilty._

_“I’ll leave you two to it,” Gilly said, looking between them before she left._

_Arya glared as Gendry pushed away the covers and pulled on his trousers. “Why does Jon know you would be in my room?” she demanded._

_“Suddenly you’re ashamed?” Gendry asked incredulously._

_She resisted the urge to strangle him. “Of course not, idiot, it’s just...it’s Jon, and he’s my brother and...and...why does he know?” she nearly shouted, remembering that she was asking the questions._

_Gendry sighed, scrubbing one hand through his hair and nervously rubbing the back of his neck. “He’s known that we’ve been, uh, we’ve been—”_

_“Fucking,” Arya finished impatiently, annoyed at the blush on her betrothed’s skin._

_“Yeah, that...he’s known since that night at the Inn at the Crossroads. He caught me coming out of your room the next morning.”_

_Arya’s eyes widened involuntarily. That had been almost a month earlier. “Why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t you say anything?”_

_Gendry took a deep breath. “He wouldn’t have seen me had he not been coming out of Bella’s room. He didn’t even say anything to me. I think he was ashamed. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry.”_

_Arya turned away from him and poured the tea into a cup. She wasn’t ashamed of her relationship with Gendry, physical or otherwise, but a part of her wanted to remain Jon’s baby sister in his eyes. It was why she hadn’t recounted her entire history to him, and why she hadn’t divulged the full extent of her relationship with Gendry. She was also shocked that Jon sought comfort in the bed of a woman. Although, Bella admitted that she favored sad men, and there were probably few men in the world that carried more sorrow than Jon Snow._

_“Arya? I’m sorry.”_

_Gendry was looking at her with an imploring, apologetic expression. She cocked her head and gulped down a mouthful of tea. “There’s nothing to forgive,” she told him. “I just...I just learned a lot of information in the last day, and I...don’t know what to do with…all of it.”_

_Gendry came closer and placed a hand on the side of her face, lacing some of his fingers through her hair. She allowed herself to melt into his touch as he pressed his lips to her head at her hairline.Her eyes fluttered shut as she drifted closer to him and wrapped her arms around his torso._

_“I wish I could say that I would take it all back, but I don’t actually.I want a future with you.I want our family.Are you still sure that’s what you want?”_

_She could feel his heart pounding beneath her ear.He was scared. So was she, but she still didn’t want to leave his gentle hold on her.The babe in her belly was already making her soft._

_“Yes,” she told him. “I want everything with you.”_

* * *

Arya smiled as she looked across the ravens’ scrolls across her bed.Shireen’s letter gushed over Arianne Martell and how the princess wanted a version of Shireen’s dress, which was actually trousers and a top designed to look like a dress. Shireen had crudely drawn the idea when she was about eight and Bella and Rhae had helped make it a reality.Since then, it was almost all Shireen would wear.From the waist up, she was a proper little lady, and from the waist down she was able to ride a horse astride.Shireen loved riding and pretty clothes in equal measure and was thrilled that there was a highborn lady in the world who loved the same.She mentioned Sandor winning the archery tournament at the very end as though it was an afterthought.

Gendry’s letter was mostly about Sandor’s performance in the archery tournament.She could almost feel the pride in Gendry’s uneven scrawl—Davos’s handwriting was almost better—as she read about Sandor’s gesture to the people of King’s Landing.She also giggled as she read about Arianne’s proposition.Gendry had always cared more about what was “proper.”Arya knew it was because of his birth and early life.Picturing his face turning several shades of red made her smile.

Sansa’s letter was much more informative of the politics of the tourney, not that Arya cared that much.She did take a bit of pride that Brendyn Tully acquitted himself so well at the melee. Based on previous letters from her husband, she would need to talk to her daughter on why she should be as proud of her Tully heritage as the rest of her background. 

There was also a missive from Arianne Martell confirming the depth of Gendry’s embarrassment.It also contained phrases like, “I hope we may always maintain our bonds of friendship.” Based on Sansa’s letter, it appeared that Arianne might be ready to take true power in Dorne.As Dorne’s closest neighbor, the Stormlands would be forced to choose sides.Arya hoped the princess would at least wait until after the Great Council to make her move.She did not want to be away from her family if the South suddenly destabilized.

Sandor also sent a letter.It was literally two sentences: “I won the archery tournament.Thank you for all of the training.Love, Sandor.” Arya was certain Gendry had forced him to write the letter and probably stood over his shoulder as he did so.Their eldest was already starting to outgrow his need for them, but they would have another.

She hadn’t informed her husband or her sister of her pregnancy.Sansa would be so ecstatic that they would be having nearly parallel pregnancies and the news would spill out of her like a sieve.And she couldn’t tell Gendry the news by raven scroll.He would start blaming himself and replaying every mistake from Davos’s birth and what came after.He would do that when she told him in person, but at least Arya would be present to slap him out of it.She would likely be showing by the time she saw her husband again; there was already a gentle swell of her lower abdomen that was only visible in her nightclothes.Hopefully, he wouldn’t dissolve into panic the moment he laid eyes on her again.

She had only told Gendry that Jon was in Winterfell, and judging from Sansa’s correspondence, he hadn’t told her.Jon and Sansa’s relationship had been strained since she had broken his trust and told Tyrion about his heritage.Jon had only come down from north of the wall and his self-imposed exile when either Sansa was playing host to another family, or he had Tormund and a group of Free Folk with him as well.They probably needed to talk about it like adults, but they were both far too good at suppressing their emotions for that sort of thing.

She had admittedly been avoiding Jon since he had started asked her about Bella. The few times she had seen Jon in the last decade and a half, he hadn’t asked about her.Arya figured Jon’s over-developed sense of honor left him ashamed of the purely physical relationship he’d shared with Bella.She also doubted Jon knew that Arya was aware of his relationship with her good-sister at all.

Despite Arya’s avoidance of her brother, Davos had practically become his shadow.Arya watched them and wondered if that was what her mother and father had seen when she was a little girl following her brothers at every opportunity.She had yet to determine who her youngest took after most.Sandor had a quiet confidence he had learned from his mother, and an innate strength and kindness he had acquired from his father. Shireen was loud and willful and bossy as Arya had been as a girl.She was also just as determined about the things she liked, although those things were horses and clothes rather than the swords and bows that Arya had preferred at her age. Davos was more motivated by fun than either of his parents, and she supposed that was entirely due to the security of his upbringing. While Arya found all of her children entertaining at times, Davos was the only one who ever intentionally tried to make those around him laugh.He liked telling fanciful stories and always had excellently ridiculous explanations for how things got broken.Arya supposed this trait might have been learned from Davos’s namesake.The old man’s time as a smuggler and a diplomat had made him a very good storyteller.

She rubbed at the small protrusion in her lower belly and sipped her lemon-ginger tea.She wondered who this child would take after.Gendry would likely be worried that something was going to happen to either Arya, or the babe, or both of them.Arya had no such worries.She bore marks on the cap of her left shoulder which were reflected on Gendry’s right arm just above the elbow so when they stood face-to-face or back-to-back, they formed four unbroken lines.All the seer in the West had said as she painstakingly tapped the ink into their skin was, “Future.”Gendry had worried that meant they only had four years left before they died.When those years had come and gone, he decided they meant decades.But Arya felt she knew the truth of it now.They would live to see all four of her children.She didn’t believe in much after all that had happened in her life, but she believed in that.

She saw the darkening of the light creeping in from under her door, and then it stepped away as the owner of the boots paced in the corridor.She wondered for a few long moments if the feet were going to do more than pace when a soft knock resounded through the room.She set her tea aside and opened the door to reveal her brother dressed down to his shirt and trousers and wearing an expression more grim than usual.

His eyes met hers and he said, “Bella’s daughter, Rhae, is she mine?”

Arya stared back. Bella had never confirmed her daughter’s parentage, but it was obvious given the girl’s large brown eyes and curly black hair.When Bella had chosen the name Rhaelle, Gendry and Arya knew who her father must have been.Arya’s neice was both a Targaryen and a Baratheon, just as her namesake had been.

“Yes,” Arya answered, her own voice sounding foreign to her.“Yes, she is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know Shireen didn't visit Gendry at Dragonstone, but she was there at the same time, and it would totally be something that would be within her character to do. I mostly just wanted Gendry to have his own personal reason to want to honor her rather than her just being important to someone who was important to him.
> 
> So how about that cliffhanger? Which I am cruelly not going to address in the next chapter because I'm already 2700+ words into it and it is all on our boy, Gendry. But don't worry, unlike when I started this fic, I actually have a plan now!
> 
> Speaking of when I started this fic, I realized that my story summary was absolute crap after the third or fourth comment about not knowing what to expect, so I updated that too.
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	9. Hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some warnings: there are two flashbacks in this chapter, one I didn't entirely intend to write. Gendry was just recounting a memory, and then suddenly there was dialogue. The other flashback happens normally.  
> Also, this chapter might be hard for Dany's fans. As I've said earlier, I don't necessarily disagree with her canon ending, I just thought it should have had a little more build-up than the 'previously on'. Hopefully I accomplish that near the end. Mostly this is just Gendry and Sandor bonding.  
> This fic, by the way, was pretty much inspired by this pin and adapted to fit show canon up to 8x04:  
> https://www.pinterest.com/pin/19984792083406637/

Gendry woke with a start, body covered in a cold sweat. He reached out to the space next to him, and found it empty. He then remembered where he was and that he had been waking up alone for nearly two months and would likely continue to do so for another. He groaned and threw off the thin covers. He would be getting no more sleep that night.

He caught sight of himself in the mirror as he pulled on his breeches. When he first went to the Stormlands, the lords accepted him with relative ease due to his physical resemblance to his father. The resemblance didn’t matter much anymore. There weren’t many left alive that remembered the “Fat King” and those who did would not have said Gendry resembled Robert Baratheon at the age of forty. He had lines around his eyes and the odd gray hair which his wifewould pluck from his scalp-usually while he was sleeping-to tease him for she had no gray hair herself. Arya’s round face and large eyes gave her a deceptively childlike appearance. Her face showed none of her age, while Gendry’s face produced a new line every year. His body, however, had not aged as his father’s had. The muscles in his abdomen might not have been as taut as they had when he was five-and-twenty, but he was not sporting the pot belly his father had had at his age. 

Gendry also knew he must have sported very different scars than his father had. Robert Baratheon had been a fighter, truly, but a high-born leader resplendent on plate armor. Gendry made armor, he didn’t wear it. His life on the run had taught him to value speed and freedom of movement over the protection plate metal might have provided. He could never be sure, of course, but he thought he likely had more scars than his father. Other than the multiple scars across his arms from more than three decades in the forge, he sported a thin line along the top of his right cheek from The Long Night, and a knotted X on his right side from where and Unsullied spear had pierced his body. Arya was likely still angry at him for telling her it was only a scratch when he could feel the blood dripping down his leg from the wound in his abdomen.

The gnarled scar on his shoulder he had acquired when the guards were not quick enough to keep Gavin Estermont from attacking Bella when he was informed she was carrying his child and that child would inherit Greenstone. It was a merciful penalty for a lord who rose up in rebellion against his king, but Estermont had been spoiled and greedy. Gendry protected his sister and took a dagger in his shoulder for it. Estermont twisted and pulled the knife causing an agony Gendry could still recall with perfect clarity. When he pushed the rebel lord away, a dagger with a direwolf’s head pierced Estermont’s throat. Gendry turned his head to see Arya with her right hand still hanging in the air from where she had thrown the dagger he had made her to replace the catspaw. Shireen was held firmly in Arya’s left arm, calmly suckling her mother’s breast as if nothing was amiss. Gendry was quite certain he had never seen anything more attractive in his entire life, and would have said so had the loss of blood not caused his legs to give way beneath him.

Part of his left forearm also resembled the Hound’s face. When young Sandor had been about seven, he had been with Gendry in the forge. He turned his back on the boy for what felt like mere moments and Sandor had climbed atop the rock edge of the open coal pit in the forge. Gendry had shouted at him and that had been his mistake. Sandor lost his balance and started to fall toward the pit. His arm hit the hot coals to keep his son from falling into them instead. 

_Time swirled messily about him after that. He collapsed against the wall of the forge with his son in his arms. He was probably too rough in checking the boy for injury, and was relieved to see he was not harmed, though he was still crying. Gendry wrapped Sandor in his arms and couldn’t understand why the boy was saying “sorry” over and over. Gendry had no idea why he was apologizing. It was his fault for not watching his own son more closely. He thought about his son’s name and the man he was named for. That Sandor’s burns had made him bitter. Would that have happened to his son if Gendry’s carelessness had brought him to harm? Gendry held his son tightly to his chest and was only vaguely aware of the other smiths offering aid and guards asking what had happened.He didn’t really remember anyone until his wife was kneeling in front of him, her bow still slung across her chest from her hunt._

_Gendry smiled at her deliriously.“He’s all right.Sand’s all right.”_

_“I can see that,” she said, brushing her fingers through their son’s hair and smiling that kind smile that was reserved only for Gendry and their children.“He’s just fine.But you’re not.”_

_Gendry could suddenly smell the scent of burnt hair and charred flesh.His stomach turned when he saw how his exposed skin had melted to the leather gauntlet he wore. “Oh,” he said, surprised at the mess of his own arm._

_Arya gently pulled Sandor from his grasp. The boy’s face was red and stained with tears.“I’m so sorry, Papa!I didn’t mean to hurt you!I’m so sorry!”_

_“No, no, it’s my fault,” Gendry replied in a rush.“I should have been watching. I should have paid more attention.I should—”_

_“Stop it, it’s alright,” Arya said, holding his face in her hands until his eyes locked on hers.“You saved our boy.You saved him, alright?”_

_He nodded almost imperceptibly before she helped him to his feet.He couldn’t recall the walk back up to the keep other than the fact that Arya was at his side holding their son’s hand.Maester Jurne was waiting for them in the family solar. He directed Gendry to sit and lay his arm out on the table.The old maester eyed Arya and said, “Your Grace, perhaps the prince—”_

_“The prince will watch,” Arya replied flatly, a hand on Sandor’s shoulder, rooting him in place._

_“Arya,” Gendry pleaded, his eyes wide._

_Her eyebrows arched slightly in response and her lips were set into at thin line.He knew then there was no arguing with her even if he was able to form coherent sentences with the pain beginning to radiate throughout his body._

_Maester Jurne accepted this audience with no more objection than what he had already voiced.Gendry hissed with every motion the maester made with the buckles on his gauntlet. Sandor turned his head to look away, but Arya placed her palm on the side of his face and guided his gaze back to the spot Gendry sat.Gendry wanted to smile and reassure his son, but Jurne removed the gauntlet from his arm and it took all of his self-control not to spew every profane word he knew.As it was, Gendry released a cry of pain so loud it reverberated throughout the keep.He pressed his forehead to the surface of the table and tried unsuccessfully to find his breath.He distantly heard children crying and he wondered if it was his daughter, his nephew, or both._

_“You must breathe normally, Your Grace,” Jurne warned._

_“Gendry, you have to breathe.I’m not picking your heavy arse up off the floor.”_

_He smiled at his wife’s jest and took deep breath.He let it out slowly and repeated the process a few more times before he found the strength to pick his head up.He looked over and found Arya’s face had softened almost into a smile and she was holding Sandor’s hand rather than his face.Sandor’s face was streaked with tears, but he was not looking away, and he was holding onto his mother’s hand as though she might disappear if he let go._

_“I love you,” he said to Arya, holding in a grimace as the old man cleaned the burn on his arm._

_“I love you, too.Stupid bull,” she replied with upturned lips upon her face._

_Gendry had to be reminded to breathe several more times before the maester was finished cleaning and wrapping the burn in a cooling salve.He offered milk of the poppy which Gendry immediately rejected.Jurne gave a long-suffering sigh and handed the bottle to Arya with a knowing look before he gathered the rest of his things and left the family to themselves._

_Arya let go of her son’s hand and looked down at him.He timidly looked up and met her eyes, biting his lip in anticipation of what was to come._

_“Do you understand why I made you watch that?” she asked him._

_Sandor nodded.“Because it was my fault,” he answered in a small voice._

_“You knew you weren’t supposed to climb near the fire.”_

_“Yes, Momma.”_

_“That’s why you waited until your father’s back was turned.”_

_“Yes, Momma.”_

_“You made a decision.You made a poor decision, and there was a consequence, a consequence your father had to pay.Your father.One of the best men I’ve ever known,” Arya said, the volume of her voice rising with every word.“No one else should pay the consequences for your bad decisions.No one should burn for your bad decisions!”_

_“Arya,” Gendry called to her firmly.Her breath caught in her throat and she looked at him.Long moments passed as he silently reminded her that their son had not seen what they had seen.Finally, the tension ebbed from Arya’s body and she turned back to their son._

_“There are consequences to your actions,” she told the boy calmly.“For the next week, after your morning lessons with Maester Jurne, you will go to the stables.You will not ride.You will be giving our stable boys a nice holiday in the afternoons because you will be doing all of their tasks yourself.Do you understand?”_

_“Yes, Momma,” Sandor replied, lip quaking as he nodded._

_The door to the corridor opened and Bella appeared, young Steffon dozing on her shoulder as she bounced him lightly at her hip.“Hettie is with Rhae and Shireen,” she informed them.“Are we all still alive in here?”_

_Gendry chuckled though he felt little mirth at the situation.“Just about,” he told her._

_“Will you take Sandor back to his room and have supper sent up to him?” Arya asked her._

_“I assume this should be a meager supper?” Bella asked, though the look she sent her good sister said she knew the answer._

_“You assume correctly,” Arya replied before turning her attention back toward her son.“Tell your father goodnight.”_

_Gendry turned in his chair, gingerly moving his injured arm from the table so he could face his son.Despite the tears still staining his face, Sandor squared his shoulders and looked him in the eye._

_“I’m sorry you were hurt because of me, Papa. Can you forgive me?”_

_Gendry pulled his son to him with his good arm and kissed the crown of his head. “Of course I forgive you,” he breathed, tears stinging his eyes. “But you’ve got to learn when you do wrong. Understand?”_

_Sandor nodded and said, “I love you, Papa.”_

_“Love you, too,” Gendry said, kissing the boy’s forehead a final time before letting him go._

_Sandor walked past his mother toward his aunt’s outstretched hand. Gendry didn’t miss the look of hurt on his wife’s face, though he was sure no one else would have noticed. Sandor stopped suddenly just before taking Bella’s hand, turned, and threw his arms around his mother’s waist. She hesitated for only a moment in surprise before she wrapped her arms around his shoulders._

_“I’m sorry, Momma,” he mumbled into her stomach. “I love you.”_

_“I forgive you, and I love you, too,” Arya said, kissing the top of his head before sending him toward his waiting aunt._

_Arya kept her back toward Gendry as Bella promised to send them some food and shut the door._

_“You think me harsh?” she asked, not yet turning to face him._

_“No,” Gendry admitted. “Most people, high-born and low, would have whipped him for such foolishness. I had the hair on the back of my neck singed off for doing that when I was his age. Of course, I had a master instead of a father.”_

_“Are you going to start whinging about your terrible childhood now?”_

_The lightness of her voice infuriated him. His blood boiled at the thought of the only other person who had ever accused him of ‘whinging’ and he slammed his fist on the table._

_“I am not ‘whinging’ damn it! It was my fucking life and—”_

_His hip jammed into the table as he lost his footing having only one good arm to balance himself with as he stood. His right forearm connected painfully with the edge of the table, but that only slowed his descent to the floor. He landed hard and was grateful for the ridiculously plush rug his uncle Renly had placed in the room as it kept his skull from cracking like an egg._

_Arya pulled his head and shoulders into her lap and ceded a rare apology for teasing him. He thought he should probably be ashamed of crying like a babe as he pressed his face into her stomach. But every time he blinked, he saw his son falling toward the flames, the heat of his own failure threatening to tear him apart._

_“We named him Sandor,” Gendry said, his voice thick with tears. “We named him Sandor and he almost fell into a fire. He almost fell into a fucking fire.”_

_“It wasn’t only the fire that made him the way he was,” Arya said, brushing her fingers through his hair.“He only knew how to hate.Our son would know love, no matter what happened to him. You have to know that.”_

_“I do,” Gendry said quietly, his head still resting on her lap._

_The door opened followed quickly by a yelp and a young voice saying, “Oh, gods, I’m sorry!”_

_Gendry lifted his head to see Ginny, the serving girl.She was holding a tray laden with food and her eyes were squeezed tightly shut.Despite his dour mood, he chuckled remembering the last time Ginny had found them on the floor of this room and Gendry’s head had been in Arya’s lap in an entirely different context._

_“Ginny, we’re fully clothed.It’s all right,” Arya told her as she gently pushed Gendry into a sitting position._

_The girl opened one eye just to be certain before she came into the room fully and set the tray down on the table as Gendry laboriously pulled himself back into his chair. Ginny set their food out and scurried off before she became witness to any other interactions between her king and queen._

_“I think we might have scarred that girl for life,” Gendry told his wife as he reached for the bread and recoiled in pain almost immediately._

_Arya rolled her eyes and tore a piece of the brown bread and set one of the bowls of stew in front of him.He reached for the pitcher of ale, but she got there first, and poured the golden contents into a mug._

_“I’m not helpless.”_

_Arya merely cocked an eyebrow at him as she poured the bottle of milk of the poppy the maester had given her into the mug as well._

_“Don’t do that.It gives me nightmares.”_

_“You’d have the nightmares anyway after today,” she replied matter-of-factly.“Eat and then drink. The after-effects won’t be so bad that way.”_

_Gendry sighed and dipped the bread into the stew before shoving it into his mouth._

_“I’m pregnant, by the way.”_

_He coughed and sputtered as he choked.“What?!”_

_“Thought I’d tell while you’re sensible,” she said, nibbling at her bread.“It’s why I went hunting earlier.I wanted squirrel.”_

_Gendry felt like he’d already taken the milk of the poppy.“Squirrel? Really?”_

_She nodded.“Cook’s going to put them in some pies for me.”_

_“Are you-are you sure? We only started trying a moon’s turn ago.It took us years with Shireen.”_

_Arya shrugged.“I guess that fertility ritual had long-lasting effects.”_

_Gendry groaned and shook his head before reaching for the ale.“I’m probably not going to remember if this was real in the morning,” he said before he drank._

_“I’ll remind you.”_

_He shook his head.“Fucking squirrels?!”_

* * *

Gendry smiled.He could hardly stomach the idea of eating squirrel since their days on the run in the Riverlands.His wife had strange tastes, which was probably why she’d chosen him in the first place.

In addition to the myriad scars on his body, there were four lines inked into his right arm just above his elbow that mirrored lines on Arya’s shoulder.He once thought that the lines meant years or decades, but that didn’t quite make sense. The people in the West didn’t track time that way.Gendry didn’t entirely care what it meant, but he was glad that whatever future he had, he was going to share it with Arya.There had been a time when he wasn’t so sure of such a thing.

He pulled on a linen shirt and his boots and made his way out of Bran’s house, startling the baker that had come to the kitchens to begin the day’s work.He would never call the air in King’s Landing fresh, but it was certainly less stifling than the air inside.Summer nights in his youth, Gendry would bed down on rooftops to escape the heat indoors.It wasn’t considered proper for him to do such a thing anymore, unfortunately.He walked through the open courtyard and past the Great Council Hall.The hair on the back of his neck prickled as though he was being followed.The moonlight and various torches provided illumination, but he could not make out another person.So, he continued on, climbing the rubble of the Red Keep. He climbed until he reached a nearly level precipice. He sat on the edge and looked down into the shadows.He could just make out the tips of steel belonging to the ugly chair that so many fought and died for.

“Papa? What are you doing up here?”

He gasped at the sound of his son’s voice as the young man sat down next to him.“Gods, Sandor, your mother sneaks up on me enough. I don’t need you doing it too.”

He grinned.“She said sneaking up on you would be a good way to practice. Or at least a fun way.”

Gendry rolled his eyes. “Of course she said that.You’re improving, I’ll give you that.”

“Thanks. Is that it?” Sandor asked, motioning in the direction of the Iron Throne.

Gendry nodded silently.They stayed in silence for a while before the boy said, “You were here when it all happened; you and Momma.

“Yeah,” Gendry said, an involuntary shiver running through his bones.

“Surviving all of this, is that how you knew you loved Momma?”

Gendry’s brow furrowed at the suddenness of the question.“Why are you asking such a question?”

“I-I just want to know.”

Even in the dim light, Gendry could see the blush creeping up his son’s neck.He smirked.“This wouldn’t have anything to do with Joanna Lannister, would it?”

Sandor’s eyes widened.“Why-why-why would you say that?” he sputtered.

“That look on your face, for one,” Gendry answered with a grin.“She was very excited when you won the archery tournament, and you two did seem to spend a lot of time when she and Brienne came to Storm’s End on their way to visit Tarth last year.”

Sandor scrunched up his face in frustration. “You-you didn’t answer my question. Was surviving all this what made you realize you loved Momma?”

Gendry scoffed.“I think it helped her realize she loved me, but, no, I knew before King’s Landing burned and the Red Keep fell that I loved your mother and was probably ruined for it.”

“Yeah, but _how_ did you know?”

Gendry sighed.“It’s sort of hard to explain.”

Sandor’s face twisted into a shape of disgust.“Gods, Papa, you don’t mean you realized it when you were inside of her or something like that?”

“Sandor!”

“That pirate friend of Uncle Davos’s says the only god is what’s between a woman’s legs.Is that what he meant?”

“No, that is most certainly not what that man meant,” Gendry said, scrubbing his face with his hands.“And that’s not _exactly_ what I meant either.”

“Then what was it, _exactly_? How did you know?”

Gendry groaned deeply and looked down into the chasm beneath him.“It’s different.There’s not one moment that I realized I loved your mother. When we were young, I loved her differently.She was my friend and we protected each other.I can’t really tell you when or how, but one day I knew I didn’t want to be without her, and that I could never have that sort of life.I was just a bastard boy from Flea Bottom, and she was the daughter of one of the oldest and most noble families in the country.I wouldn’t be able to have her in my life as a friend, or a brother, or anything.The world didn’t work that way, still doesn’t really.So, I tried to push her away. Didn’t matter, though. I was taken from her. After Davos set me free, I got back to King’s Landing, and the streets were filled with the news of the Red Wedding. I thought she died. Later, I heard rumors about a feral little girl wandering the country with the Hound.It wasn’t proof, but I wanted to believe it was her. Very rarely, I’d think about her, about how she was growing up. Maybe I fell in love with the idea of her in my head, I don’t know. Then Davos came and got me and I eventually wound up in Winterfell, and there she was.And she was more beautiful, and more fierce, and more skilled than I ever dared imagine. Miraculously, she seemed like she wanted me too.So, we were about to die in battle, and she was standing naked in front of me. I know this isn’t proper to talk about with your son, but…fuck it.That’s when it changed for me again.I still loved her, but it wasn’t like it was before.Sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear.”

Sandor shrugged. “Not sure what I wanted to hear.I suppose you and Momma aren’t really a typical example of what love should look like, are you?”

A laugh escaped Gendry’s chest.“No, I don’t think we are.”

“Surprised there aren’t songs about you.”

“Well, I’m relatively certain your mother’s threatened a minstrel or two…or ten.”

Sandor smirked at that.His expression turned serious as his gaze fell to the darkness beneath them.“A lot of people are scared of Momma.They call her Queenslayer.Most people think she killed Cersei.Some think she killed Daenerys.There are even some who think she killed both of them.But it’s not true.She didn’t kill either of them, did she?”

“Sand…”

“Joey knows the truth, you know? She knows she wasn’t born in Winterfell.She knows _you_ carried her out of this castle before the wildfire brought it down.She knows that Cersei was her mother.Ser Brienne told her the truth a couple of years ago.”

Gendry knew he was gaping at his son as he dumbly said, “You call her Joey?”

“Lots of people call her that.”

Gendry doubted that very much. “Why would she tell you a secret like that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Sandor.”

“We were kissing all right!” the young man explained, gesturing wildly. “She thought I should know everything before it went any further.”

“And did it go any further?” Gendry asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know the answer.

“You know, I find that tone a bit hypocritical considering what you just told me.”

“Sandor, I may not be as fast as your mother, but I’m still strong enough to put you on your back if I need to,” Gendry reminded him with a glare he rarely had to use on his eldest child. “Did it go any further?”

“No, of course not,” Sandor spat back.“You and Momma, you taught me that my decisions have consequences, and no one else should have to pay them.”

Gendry unconsciously looked down to where his arm was scarred beneath his sleeve.

“I know any decision Joey and I would make, we’d make together, but…she’d have to bear the consequences almost entirely herself.And I remember when Davos was born; the screaming. I know it’s not always like that, but...gods.”

Gendry could recall how he felt that night with perfect clarity. Arya had stirred suddenly beside him. It was too early—they wouldn’t have been traveling had she been in her last moon—but her waters had broken. When Sam started to look grim and the pain was overwhelming even his fierce wife, she said, “I deserve this. I deserve this for what I’ve done.” She’d passed out after and he screamed thinking she had died with that being her last thought. He didn’t hear Sam saying she was still alive, and he didn’t really remember blackening Podrick’s eye when the man tried to pull him from his wife’s side. Eventually Tristran joined in Podrick’s struggle and, along with two grizzled Stark guards, dragged him from her bedside. He had raged against them and his anger continued even as he beat his fists against the stone of the forge. He raged until Gilly found him and slapped him so hard his a ancestors back to Durran himself must have felt it. She reminded him that he was not yet a widower, and even if he were to become one, he still had three children that needed him. Gilly was really quite good at shaming people into doing the right thing. She placed Davos into his bandaged hands not long after. He had only held a child so small once before: when he had carried Joanna Lannister from the Red Keep.

He squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, summoning courage he hoped he would never need. “I didn’t know what I was doing and I thought I was going to break her, especially when I had to creep through a tunnel to get to Davos’s smuggler’s cove. She was so tiny, but gods could she scream. Was a good thing too since it kept me from noticing how close I was to passing out.”

He saw his son smirking out of the corner of his eye. “I think Momma’s still cross with you about that.”

Gendry groaned and rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know,” he said before taking another fortifying breath. “Your mother told you about the Faceless Men, right?”

Sandor shuddered, but nodded. “When I was twelve,” he clarified.

“She took the face of a man called Qyburn, he was Cersei’s Hand and something like a maester. He was a horrible person, experimented on people,” Gendry explained, feeling the need to justify the man’s death. “Anyway, she used it to get close to Cersei, but the shock of Daenerys Targaryen just obliterating her army must have sent her into early labor. She was writhing in agony on the royal bed, covered in her waters and blood when Arya found her. It must have been a pretty pathetic sight because your mother changed her mind about killing her outright. Your mother learned about the body from the Faceless Men, so she cut Cersei open, and pulled Joanna from her womb. Your mother claims she got lucky, but I think she’s just very good with a blade. Your mother might have finished the job, but some idiot was screaming and needed help. So, she left Cersei bleeding, certainly to death, but with her child in her arms, and went to save someone’s life instead.”

“Whose?”

Gendry smirked. “Mine.”

* * *

 

_He came back to himself, memory of his skull colliding with the Keep’s walls fuzzy in his mind, whilst being dragged by the shoulders between two Unsullied. He pulled back when he found his footing and the Unsullied were surprised, but not for long. One of them punched him in the face and knocked him off balance enough the regain their hold. They pulled his arms behind his back and upward so hard that Gendry cried out in pain. A hand was suddenly on his throat, forcing his gaze upward to the man called Grey Worm. He had Gendry’s warhammer in the hand that was not around his throat._

_“You were attacking the Queen’s men,” Grey Worm told him._

_“They were attacking innocents,” Gendry rasped through ragged breaths._

_“You have betrayed your queen,” Grey Worm continued flatly._

_“She asked me to betray myself,” Gendry replied. “She is not my queen.”_

_“You will face the queen’s justice,” Grey Worm told him flatly before turning around and leading their procession down the corridor._

_Gendry struggled against his captors.He freed one arm and elbowed the soldier holding it in the face and punched the other in gut to free himself completely.He didn’t even make it an entire step before Grey Worm jabbed him hard in the stomach withthe handle of his own hammer. He cried out as his knees hit the stones, unable to take a deep breath without immense pain. The Unsullied pulled him up to his unsteady feet, nearly wrenching both his arms from his shoulders in the process. He kept struggling against them even though he knew his strength was waning._

_They dragged him down the steps of the throne room. Some of the braziers were lit, but most of the dim light in the room came from the smoky air outside. He spied Daenerys on that perfectly good waste of Valyrian steel from the glint of her silver hair. Tyrion Lannister was standing beside the throne flanked by two Unsullied. His face held no look of proud victory. Gendry thought the small man looked a bit frightened._

_They threw him on the stones in front of the raised dais. He managed to turn his body and landed in painfully on his shoulder to save his wrists from shattering. He was going to be dead in a few minutes so he wasn’t sure why he cared. He was pulled roughly from the floor and forced to look up. He counted at least a dozen Unsullied and Dothraki in the room. Even if he could break loose again from the hands holding him, he would be in pieces in a few steps. In resignation, he finally looked Daenerys in the face. Her face bore no calm and peaceful smile. There was soot staining her face and her intricate braids were wind blown. Even in the dim light, he could see the circles under her eyes and the paleness of her skin. She looked ill, even with the fire reflected in her eyes and expression._

_“Lord Baratheon,” she began coolly, “you have betrayed me.”_

_The dragon roared in the distance and Gendry’s stomach turned, remembering the swath of the city she had destroyed on her way to the castle. “You’re already on your fucking throne!” he shouted, struggling uselessly against his guards. “What is your dragon doing?”_

_“Drogon is defending his mother.”_

_“Against who? Common people running for their lives?”_

_“They made their choice to follow Cersei.”_

_Gendry chuckled darkly. “The people don’t have choices. They’re born in shit. They die in shit. In between, they just hope for their children not to starve. They don’t care who sits on that ugly chair.”_

_Daenerys’s eyes widened slightly at his words and Tyrion’s eyes darted quickly between them. Daenerys apparently opted to ignore Gendry as her lips flattened to a grim line and she authoritatively said, “You called your banners against me, Lord Baratheon, even after I gave you a name and a home. Why is that?”_

_Gendry held his head high and looked her in the eye. “I didn’t call my banners against you. I didn’t even demand they follow me. I_ asked _them to help me get the people out of the city their former liege lord ruled as king and they did. We came for the people.”_

_“You were killing my soldiers.”_

_“They were slaughtering innocents.”_

_“No one is innocent,” Daenerys told him coldly. “Jon Snow has not been seen among the Northern armies. You claim you did not betray me by calling arms against me. Did you do as I asked in regards to him?”_

_Gendry glared at her. “I’ve been used by you high borns enough. I’m not going to play your game, and I’m certainly not going to betray my family.”_

_“Your family?” she asked, eyebrows arched imperiously. “I wasn’t aware of any familial connection between yourself and Jon Snow.”_

_“He’s the brother of the woman I love. That’s family enough for me.”_

_Daenerys sneered at him. “Sansa Stark has used you too, just as she has used her other relationships to her own family’s advantage.”_

_She looked at Tyrion significantly and Tyrion looked back in confusion. Gendry suddenly found himself laughing at the absurdity of the suggestion. He laughed until Grey Worm punched him in the mouth and he fell back until the men holding his arms jerked him back upright._

_“You think this amusing?”_

_Gendry shook his head. “I don’t know who told you I was Robert Baratheon’s bastard, but they clearly knew about as little about me as you do. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to Lady Stark, and barely even looked at her. I’m certainly not in love with her.”_

_Daenerys’s eyes narrowed as Tyrion’s widened._

_“Fuck,” Tyrion swore slowly. “Your Grace, you cannot execute him.”_

_She turned on him sharply. “I am done listening to your advice. You chose to disobey me and set your brother free. You are no longer my Hand.”_

_“Robert Baratheon tore this country apart for a Stark he loved. Imagine what the Stark who killed the embodiment of evil would do for the Baratheon she loves,” Tyrion argued._

_Gendry wanted to tell them they might be lucky there. Arya had never said she loved him, and when they had parted a week earlier after spending the night in his tent. And the other boy thing she had said that sounded even remotely like a promise was, “After. If there is an after,” which was only slightly more hopeful than the last time she’d left him. He didn’t have much time to think on it, however, as Daenerys declared, “Enough! I’ll hear no more from you. Lord Baratheon, where is Jon Snow?”_

_“I have no idea,” Gendry answered honestly. Davos had informed him that Jon had a plan and that he wanted Gendry to gather his men to evacuate the city as part of it. What Jon’s plan was for himself, Gendry hadn’t wanted to know._

_“Then you are both a traitor and of no use to me,” Daenerys said, rising from the throne.“Lord Gendry Baratheon, I, Daenerys of the House Targaryen, First of my Name, find you guilty of treason and sentence you to die.”_

_The two Unsullied holding his arms pulled them taut and twisted them, forcing his head down.Grey Worm hefted Gendry’s hammer in his hands. Gendry thought it likely poetic he was about to be killed with his own hammer made with his own hands.Perhaps someone could write a tragic ballad about it._

_“Valar morghoulis,” Grey Worm said darkly, lifting the head of the hammer above his shoulder._

_Something sliced through the air and the hold on Gendry’s arm slackened completely. He pulled with all of his remaining strength and pushed the guard’s impaled body toward Grey Worm. He wrenched his other arm free and caught his hammer before it hit the ground.He clambered to his feet as Arya leapt down from the balcony and landed crouched perfectly,_ Needle _held aloft. He backed toward her as the Unsullied and Dothraki began to circle them. He backed into her back and felt her small hand on his thigh._

_“You’re an idiot,” she told him,_ Needle _whipping gracefully through the air._

_“Anything you say, milady,” he joked back before swinging at the Dothraki charging them._

_The most idiotic part of his mind wanted to watch Arya as she fought, but his instinct for survival was greater and he stayed with his back to Arya’s and swung his hammer with all his might at any that came near them._

_The fight could have lasted twenty seconds or twenty minutes.Gendry’s muddled mind couldn’t manage understanding the passage of time while being wholly focused on guarding Arya’s blindspot. One of the Dothraki screamers charged between them. Gendry stuck him with the spike of his hammer, but lost his balance in the process. He had to use the long handle to block an Unsullied spear from connecting with his face. Arya had been kicked to the floor,_ Needle _was out of her grasp and her right hand was pinned beneath her own body, keeping her from her dagger.Even as Gendry struggled against the man above him, he kicked a discarded spear in her direction. Her fingers found the shaft and the point went through the throat of the man bearing down on her._

_Distracted, Gendry had slackened his hold on his hammer just enough for the man above him to slip past his defenses. Gendry felt a sharpness and then cold on his right side. He hit the man in the moment of his supposed victory with the bottom of his handle and then the back of the hammer, crushing his skull. He could feel blood seeping from his side, but he didn’t have time to think about how bad it might be, so he bunched up the fabric of his tunic and pulled the laces on his jerkin tightly to stem the flow of blood._

_A crack filled the air and Gendry looked up to see Arya hold back Grey Worm’s weapon with the unbladed part of the spear she had broken. His eyes darted around the room and he realized that the Unsullied commander was the last of Daenerys’s guards left. Gendry struggled to his feet, the wound in his side paining him. Arya and Grey Worm were well-matched and he knew he would be no help. Grey Worm was fast and disciplined, but Arya was ruthless. She knocked him in the forehead with the shaft of one of the pieces of the spear and he lost his focus enough for a short enough interval that Arya drove both pieces of the spear beneath his rib cage._

_“Valar Dohaeris,” Arya growled, pulling both pieces of the spear from his abdomen as he coughed blood into her face and fell down dead at her feet._

_She slowly turned toward Daenerys, who was looking at the scene about her with a mix of horror and rage. Tyrion stepped in front of Daenerys protectively as Arya moved toward the dais._

_“Arya, don’t,” Gendry warned, far more gently than he had against the angry girl intent on killing the Hound._

_She stopped and Gendry wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her back toward his chest. He inclined his head to Arya’s ear slightly and said, “She’s not yours to take.”_

_The pieces of the spear dropped to the floor. Arya spun round in his hold on her and wrapped her arms around his neck so suddenly that he stood the dumbly for a moment before he wrapped his arms around her back and held her close despite his body’s protestations._

_“Stupid bull,” she muttered into his ear._

_He smiled. “I love you, too,” he replied, kissing the side of her face, mindless of the blood that stained it._

_“You will pay for this,” Daenerys hissed through clenched teeth._

_Arya lifted her head from Gendry’s chest and turned to face the other woman. Her fingers laced through those of his free hand as she said, “So will you.”_

_“Lady Arya—” Tyrion began before Daenerys pushed him roughly away from her and he stumbled down the steps of the dais._

_“You do not speak for me!” she shouted.“I am Daenerys Stormborn.The Iron Throne is my right!”_

_Arya shook her head.“In Essos, they call you the ‘Breaker of Chains.’ They think you’re a savior.And you did save us against the Dead.We wouldn’t have survived without you.”_

_Daenerys smiled coldly. “It’s_ you _they’re calling ‘Bringer of the Dawn’.”_

_Gendry felt Arya’s hand twitch in his, but her face betrayed no emotion._

_“I can’t help what the rest of the world does,” Arya replied as Drogon roared in the distance.“You were a savior across the Narrow Sea.Today, you burned thousands.Why?”_

_The silver-haired woman cocked her head and regarded them with and almost curious expression as she stepped down to the lowest step of the dais.“In Essos I had love, but even there, I had to tear down the old world in order to build the new. I am simply doing the same in this country where I have known no love.”_

_“Jon loves you.”_

_“Jon betrayed me!” Daenerys screamed back, closing some distance between them and causing Gendry to tighten his hold on Arya’s hand. “He promised not to tell you and your sister the truth about himself!”_

_“You had no right to ask that of him!” Arya spat back, her control fading.“We are his family.He has known us our whole lives.Fire and blood be damned.We had a right to know.”_

_Daenerys took a step back and turned her eyes on Tyrion, who was crestfallenly looking at the floor. “And your sister?” she asked, her eyes trained on Arya once more._

_Gendry felt Arya’s hand twitch within his again and he saw a look of uncertainty passed across her face before her eyes landed on the Iron Throne._

_“Sansa grew up used and abused by people fighting and scheming to get that ugly chair.She’d be wary of anyone who actually wanted it,” Arya answered, her calm mask back in place._

_“It matters little what you think,” Daenerys said, turning back toward the throne._

_Drogon’s roar filled the air, and Gendry realized with a sense of dread that the sound was much closer. A loud thud sounded above them and Gendry barely had time to pull Arya to his chest and throw himself on top of her and to the floor as the ceiling collapsed around them. His body was already so bruised he barely felt the debris that pummeled his back._

_A roar filled the air as the massive creature landed in the throne room. Gendry looked up to see Tyrion coughing and brushing himself off, and looked down to find Arya twisting in his arms. She placed her hands on either side of his face as he squeezed her arms gently to remind himself she was there._

_“Dracarys!”_

_Gendry forced his eyes to stay open.He wanted Arya’s gray eyes to be the last thing he would ever know before the flames engulfed him._

_But the flames never came._

_“Dracarys! Dracarys!” Daenerys screamed._

_The look of acceptance in Arya’s eyes turned into confusion and Gendry pulled his own away to see that the dragon had settled in the middle of the broken room and was making no move to engulf them all in flames._

_Daenerys was then stunned into silence as Jon Snow slipped off the dragon’s back. Jon was wearing only rough leathers; no cloak or armor. He didn’t even have Longclaw, only a dagger on his belt. His hair was unkempt around his pained face._

_“What have you done?” Daenerys demanded, shock rooting her in place.“What have you done to my son?”_

_Jon shook his head. “What was it you told me? ‘A dragon is not a slave.’” he said quietly, his eyes only on her as if there weren’t three other people in the room struggling to their feet. “You’re his mother, not his master.He does not always have to do what you want. I made the suggestion that enough had been destroyed, and he accepted that.”_

_“You had no right—”_

_“I am blood of the dragon. Same as you.”_

_Daenerys flinched at the pride of Jon’s tone, but then set her face with just as much pride as him. “And are you here to claim your right?” she asked._

_“No,” Jon replied simply, shaking his head.He leaned down and picked an object off the floor that turned out to be Needle. He looked at Arya and handed it to her before saying, “You need to go.”_

_“I’m not leaving you,” she answered, Needle’s hilt still firmly in her hand._

_Jon smiled down on her sadly.“Yes, you are,” he told her before turning an imploring gaze toward Gendry._

_Gendry took in a sharp breath as Jon’s eyes met his.He placed a hand on the small of her back and said, “Arya, we have to go.”_

_She locked eyes with her brother for a long moment, some silent understanding passing between them.Finally, she sheathed her sword, and slipped her hand into Gendry’s.He heard Jon tell Tyrion to lead them through the castle as they skirted around Drogon and out of the doors of the throne room._

* * *

“So, Uncle Jon killed the Dragon Queen?”

Gendry shrugged and shook his head.“I’ve never asked your uncle what happened after we left, and I never will.Drogon flew out of the flames.Some people said there was a body clutched in his claws, others have said he had a rider.I didn’t see either from where I was, but I was preoccupied with the baby in my arms at the time.”

“I still don’t understand how you came to carry Joanna out of the keep.”

“Your mother and I got separated when she said goodbye to the Hound,” Gendry began.“Tyrion and I happened upon the royal bedchamber.Ser Jaime was there looking down at his baby girl in his arms.It surprised me because I didn’t even know he’d left Winterfell. Cersei was already dead.”

“She’d bled to death?”

Gendry found himself shrugging once again.“Maybe. But I saw marks at Cersei’s neck like someone had strangled her. I’ve always figured Jaime might have killed her so she wouldn’t die slowly from the loss of blood. Don’t know, didn’t ask.Mostly wanted Tyrion to get us out of there. Jaime gave Joanna to Tyrion and asked him to look after her and tell Brienne he was sorry and that he loved her and that he didn’t deserve a second chance.”

“Did he?”

“I barely knew the man.I can’t sit in judgment over him. I know he did terrible things, but I know he did good things too,” Gendry explained gravely. “In the end, he made a choice to meet his end with Cersei. He did at least tell us that there was wildfire in the foundations of the Keep. Tyrion shoved Joanna in my arms, pointed me toward Davos’s smuggler’s path and went back for Jon and Daenerys.”

“Momma didn’t catch up to you.”

“No, a wall had caved in and she had to go out through the courtyard. I remember standing on that beach, watching this place go up in green flames. I thought I’d lost your mother after only having gotten her back.I think I screamed before I passed out.I don’t properly remember anything until a week later with your momma raging at me not to die, which was frightening.”

“So Momma frightened you into living?”

“Something like that,” Gendry grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I am aware that I TOTALLY ignored Martin's rules for dragon riders, but I kind of figure the show did that when Rhaegal went to Dragonstone with Dany instead of staying with Jon. I also realize that I took some pretty major leaps in logic, but I hope to explain them with Jon's POV of the rest of the scene with Dany, which will begin the next chapter. 
> 
> Arya and Gendry's fight was inspired by this: http://www.daystrending.com/image/cache/catalog/p/35/352406739583764935-500x500.jpg
> 
> And there's also a pretty obvious allusion to this (because I could not help myself):  
> https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a3/54/a7/a354a75fdabdc953dc49bf1dec6ecbf9.gif


	10. The Worst Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...do not like this chapter, which is why it took me so long to write. I knew what I wanted to happen, but making it make sense in writing was freaking difficult.   
> In all honesty, I shipped Jonerys because they balanced each other out nicely. However, one thing D&D got right was that Jon would absolutely not be okay screwing his aunt. Among the plethora of things they got wrong, however, was the way in which Jon ended Dany’s life. So, I have attempted to honor the characters as they were written for seven years in a rewrite of a scene that essentially happened in the finale.
> 
> Enjoy?

_Dany had changed in the month since he had last seen her at Winterfell.Her face had sunken in and her skin was so pale he thought it looked almost translucent. Dark circles framed eyes full of rage. When he heard the door close behind Arya, Gendry, and Tyrion, he moved slowly toward the dais._

_“Why have you come?” she asked, her voice low and her fists shaking._

_Jon wasn’t entirely sure he knew the answer. When he learned Daenerys wanted him dead, his instinct was to prove his loyalty. He was loyal to her, he believed in her. He loved her, even when he discovered the truth about himself, and he loathed himself for it._

_“I came to talk,” he told her._

_“Talk?” she scoffed.“What good would pretty words do now?”_

_Jon shook his head as he ascended the steps to slowly approach her.“I don’t know any pretty words,” he told her.“All I know is the truth.”_

_Her gaze toward him narrowed. “The truth you decided to share with your sisters?”_

_Jon froze. He only had one excuse: “They’re my family.”_

_“I’m your family!” Daenerys insisted.“You betrayed me.I told you what would happen.”_

_“And you tried to have me murdered?” Jon asked. “You know me, Dany. I don’t want the throne. I never have. And you asked Gendry to kill me.”_

_“That is not what I asked him.”_

_“As good as,” Jon argued. “I’m lucky he’s a far more honorable man than his father.”_

_“I cannot have a threat to my claim,” she insisted._

_“You give me so little credit,” Jon argued. “I don’t want the throne, I never have, and I never will.”_

_“It won’t matter what you want,” Daenerys insisted, her face scrunched up as tears formed in her eyes. “Varys sent ravens. Enough lords will know by now.They will prefer you over me even if they don’t know you because you’re a man and you were brought up here!”_

_“They can’t force it on me.”_

_“I’m not going to let them; starting with your sister,” she promised._

_Jon didn’t need to ask which sister Daenerys meant.Sansa must have shared his secret; likely with Tyrion who then told Varys.It was the only explanation. Sansa didn’t trust Daenerys even before they met.The elder of his sisters could barely find it in herself to trust even her own family. She was certainly not going to trust an outsider pursuing the Iron Throne. He didn’t appreciate Sansa’s actions, but he understood her motivations._

_Jon took a deep breath, but couldn’t quite meet her eyes as he explained, “Sansa has been beaten, traded, and raped by those after that throne, or those bowing to it.Our brother set the North free, I fought myself to keep it that way, and Sansa is only doing the same the only way she knows how.”_

_“By undermining you?”_

_He nearly flinched at the sound of his own words from what felt like a previous lifetime. He remembered Sansa’s warning at the end of that conversation; that Robb and their father had lost their heads for a lack of cunning. Sansa had learned to think ahead and it had kept the North fed and alive. Again, he could find no fault in his sister’s basic instincts._

_“I was not much of a king. I can lead in battle, make just decisions in conflict, but it’s not in me to stay, and care for people, and shepherd them.It’s not who I am. And I don’t think it’s who you are either.”_

_“Stop it.”_

_“Dany, please,” he begged, placing his hands on either side of her face and holding her close. “Cersei is defeated. Just let the lords have their land and be done with it. Let’s leave all this behind.”_

_She blinked and a solitary tear slid down her cheek and on to Jon’s thumb. “You would be with me?” she asked quietly._

_“Yes,” he replied, surprised at his own honesty. “This quest has hurt us both, changed us both.Let’s go back to who we really are.We can go north beyond the Wall, or back to Essos.Let’s just go.Please.”_

_She pressed her lips to his and Jon felt relief coursing through his veins. Then, he heard the sound of metal being unsheathed and felt the weight off his hip. He pulled away and caught her wrist even as her hand twisted around the hilt of his dagger._

_“Dany, no,” he pleaded._

_She shook her head and tightened her grip around the dagger, angling it toward Jon’s side. “Too many people have died today. No one can challenge my claim.Their deaths can’t be in vain.”_

_He shook with the effort to hold her back. Her strength came from desperation, as did his. They struggled and time stretched out and shortened and Jon couldn’t tell exactly what happened. The knife turned in their struggle and Dany’s strength suddenly failed, and the knife slipped between her ribs and into her heart. Jon’s eyes widened in shock; his hand was on the hilt and he didn’t remember putting it there. Blood dripped from Dany’s nose and mouth as she clutched his arms, her eyes wide. Jon stumbled as he tried to hold her upright. Her last shudder of breath rasped from her lungs as he lost his hold and she fell back into the chair that had been her undoing. Time stood still, and Jon had no idea how long he stared into her unblinking eyes as tears began to fill his own while he knelt next to the Iron Throne. Drogon’s pained roar brought reality crashing back down to him._

_The dragon fixed Jon with a stare and Jon met his gaze.“Do it,” he said, begging for relief from the guilt and grief already taking hold in his guts.“Go on! Do it!Just kill me!”_

_Drogon roared once more and pieces of the roof rattled free with the sound, but he made no move to breathe fire.A sound almost like a wheeze escaped his nostrils and he laid his massive head on the dais next to his mother.Jon began to weep as the knowledge he would have no quick escape seeped into his bones._

_“Jon! Jon!”_

_He looked at Tyrion’s panicked face and was not sure the small man was real.“What-what…”_

_“We have to go,” Tyrion said, eyes darting between the dead woman on the throne and the weeping man knelt next to it. “Cersei planted wildfire in the bowels of the Keep.The whole place is about to go up.”_

_“Then leave me here,” Jon told him darkly, pushing him away._

_“I can’t do that.”_

_“I don’t deserve to live.”_

_“It doesn’t fucking matter what any of us deserve,” Tyrion hissed, grabbing Jon’s face and making him look his way.“Someone has to finish what Dany started.The real Dany, not the grief-stricken woman who burned a path of innocents. Someone has to break the wheel of oppression like she wanted, and it has to be you. Jon, there’s no other choice: it has to be you.”_

_Tears flowed freely down Jon’s face. “I don’t know what to do.I never have.”_

_“We’ll figure it out together,” Tyrion said, attempting a smile even as tears dripped down his own cheeks. “For Dany.”_

_“For Dany,” Jon repeated.He looked at Drogon and quietly said, “Take her home,” before following Tyrion out of the throne room._

…

He didn’t remember making the decision to kill Daenerys, if he ever did.Still, he felt the weight of her death everyday. Loss made people forget themselves, and he had been the root cause of many of her losses.In the end, she was no longer the woman he loved, but neither did he want her dead.

The weeks after the fall of the Red Keep were called The Breaking because the once-separate kingdoms of Westeros became separate once again. Tyrion had wanted Jon to take the throne, but Jon knew he was ill-suited to the task. When Davos pointed out that there was no Iron Throne anymore, Jon decided there shouldn’t be one ruler for the whole country. Tyrion formed the plan of the permanent council and the yearly councils and the Council of Kings and Queens. It was a way to keep the peace, especially when everyone had been so subjected to war.

When matters in Kings Landing had been settled, Jon travelled north for his sister’s wedding, which he was still trying to understand. He managed to piece together most of their story, so he was comforted by the fact that they hadn’t only met recently. And he could see they were in love. That love made him ache as well for what once was his. He was miserable, and Bella helped him forget for a few empty moments.She had been brought up in a brothel, and she assured him there wouldn’t be any other unintended consequences. He hadn’t given the woman much thought until his sister insinuated Bella had fallen pregnant with her first child at Arya and Gendry’s wedding. He spent a final night in Bella’s bed before he saddled his horse and rode for the Wall.

After staring into the fire after their supper, he knocked on Arya’s door, and she confirmed the suspicion that had been growing in his mind for days.

“Why have you kept it from me all this time?” he asked, fists shaking as he stared that the floor.

Arya’s gaze narrowed toward him. “You’re asking me that when you haven’t seen me since Shireen was little more than a year old? She’s ten now, Jon. Ten.”

“That’s not—”

“And the raven we sent about Davos’s birth must have gotten lost since you had no idea who he was,” Arya continued, fire beginning to dance in her gray eyes. “And I probably shouldn’t have even told you considering Bella’s never actually revealed her daughter’s parentage to me and Gendry.”

“Then how—”

“She has your hair, and your eyes, and your ability to stare at things with your mouth in a grim line for hours on end. She’s been mistaken for my daughter before, which annoys Shireen to no end.It’s obvious to anyone who knows you, so perhaps it’s a good thing you decided to stay away all this time.”

Arya had apparently said her piece and the fire faded from her eyes and she crossed the room to one of the chairs in front of the fireplace. Jon watched as she pulled her knees to her chest and rested her head on them, becoming once again the little girl he used to know. He closed the door and sat in the chair across from her.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally.“I stayed away because I wanted Westeros to sort itself out without anyone trying to put a crown on me.”

“I’m fairly certain that’s why Bella hasn’t even told us who Rhaelle’s father is,” Arya replied, looking into the fire rather than at him.

Jon blinked at the sound of the girl’s full name. “Isn’t-isn’t Rhaelle a Targaryen name?” he asked.

“She was a Baratheon too,” Arya pointed out. “She was Gendry and Bella’s great-grandmother.Bella thought about naming her Lyanna, but Gendry thought there was never meant to be a Lyanna Baratheon.And considering Rhae’s grown up to look like you, it might have made it too obvious. Naming her Rhaelle was a more subtle way of pointing to her father’s heritage, I suppose.”

“So, you’ve always suspected?” Jon asked, hurt grasping at his heart.

“I knew you occasionally fucked Bella after King’s Landing,” Arya replied matter-of-factly.“It’s not a huge leap to think you had a last tumble with her before you exiled yourself.”

“She always said she knew how to…take care of things.” Arya was smirking at his discomfort. He didn’t even need to look up to tell that.

“It’s not entirely her fault.Maester Wolkan was apparently overwhelmed with demand and didn’t blend the moon tea properly.We found out when Sansa sent a raven informing us of her marriage and why she wedded Tristran in the dead of night with only Podrick and Alys Karstark as witnesses. Bella’s seen what a strong moon tea can do to a woman and didn’t want to risk it.”

Jon nodded gravely. “I never wanted to father bastards.”

“I understand.”

“You really don’t,” he replied with a glare.

Arya returned his gaze evenly. “I think you’re forgetting who I married. Gendry was low born, and didn’t grow up with any family that loved him. It’s why he ended the practice of giving children bastard names in the Stormlands.”

“Of course,” Jon said, looking away guiltily. “I forget sometimes I always had it better than other bastard children.”

“You were still marked, though,” Arya admitted. “Father should have told my mother the truth about you. He should have trusted her that much by the time I was born at least.And I should have told you about Rhae; if not nine years ago, then when you first appeared a fortnight ago. I’m sorry.”

Jon chuckled mirthlessly.“I know this is where we usually say, ‘there’s nothing to forgive,’ but there is.And I do forgive you.”

“Thank you,” Arya replied softly.

Long moments passed and neither of them wanted to speak, lest they start to fight. Finally, Jon shored up his courage and said, “What’s she like?”

Arya smiled. “She’s very clever, like Bella, but, unlike Bella, she’s very patient and very kind.”

“Bella is not unkind.”

“She’s not exactly the soul of sweetness and light, either,” Arya argued lightly.“Rhae likes to sew and stitch. Shireen likes to design things, and Rhae makes them. Shireen doesn’t really have the talent or patience for stitching.”

“A daughter of yours doesn’t like stitching; there’s a shock,” Jon said, smirking.

Arya glared at him. “I’ll stitch you in a minute if you don’t shut up,” she warned. “Gendry taught Shireen how to make needles.She likes that; not as much as riding, but she does like it. Rhae doesn’t much care for the forge, but she’s a good hunter. She’s not as good a shot as my Sandor, but he stomps around like his father; Rhae is light on her feet and willing to wait for the best shot.”

“Has-has she ever asked about me?” Jon asked, looking into the fire.

“Do you mean her father, or Jon Snow?”

“Either, both,” he replied. “Why would she ask about Jon Snow, though?”

Arya quirked an eyebrow at him and shook her head.“You might have only been king for two weeks, but you were the last king of the Seven Kingdoms.People will want to know about you for generations.”

Jon felt bile rising up in his throat. “They’ll want to make a hero out of me, and I’m a murderer.”

A pregnant silence filled the room.

“They made me a hero,” she said darkly, “and I’ve murdered a lot more people than you have.”

Jon raised his head and looked properly at his sister. She hardly looked older than she did when she first returned to Winterfell, but her eyes held weight far greater than her years would allow. He had so little experience with the darkness in his sister, he sometimes forgot it existed. But it was there: the same grief he saw when he caught his own reflection.

Arya sighed and said, “Tyrion Lannister must have been very efficient at spreading his stories.Most people believe what he told the Unsullied; that The Mountain got to Daenerys Targaryen. People also seem to believe I killed Cersei, and there are a few who believe I managed to kill two queens in the space of an hour.I suppose I could have.If Daenerys had killed Gendry before I got to the throne room, I would have killed her. The Imp is clever enough to know that any report of cold-blooded murder by me would be brushed aside because I killed the Night King and saved all of Westeros.”

A chill ran through Jon’s body as he regarded his sister. She spoke of death so easily, as easily as she spoke about her children. It was familiar to her.He regretted, not for the first time, that he had ever left Winterfell to take the black. It hadn’t just been a mistake for a Stark to go to the South, it had been a mistake to break up their pack and make them easier to pick off.They had to claw their way back together and only separated once more when they began to form packs of their own. In that time apart, a darkness had taken root in each of the Starks that still lived.

“Rhae has never asked me about the hero that stood alone against a cavalry charge, or stole a dragon to spare a city,” Arya said, drawing Jon’s eyes back to hers.“She’s asked about your favorite food, and which stories you liked, or what sort of trouble you got into as a boy.She’s always wanted to know the real things, not the things everyone else wants to know.”

“Do you-do you think she knows that I’m her father?” he asked, the very question twisting his insides.

Arya shrugged. “Maybe. Like I said, she’s clever.She’s been told enough times that she looks more like a Stark than a Baratheon, and choices for Starks that could have impregnated her mother were very slim. And just because Bella hasn’t actually told Gendry and me who her father is doesn’t mean she hasn’t told Rhae herself.”

Jon nodded.He understood why Bella hadn’t told the truth.The more people that knew, the more people that were likely to know.It was why Ned Stark had taken the secret of Jon’s birth to his grave without even confiding in his beloved wife.It was why Dany hadn’t wanted Jon to tell his sisters the truth as well. Rhae would be in danger of being used or even being killed if the truth were to get out.

“You should go see her,” Arya said, startling him from his reverie.

He shook his head fiercely.“I can’t.”

“Why? Because you think you’re a murderer who doesn’t deserve happiness?”

“Because it would put her in danger.”

“Well, if anyone recognizes you, just say you’re visiting Ser Davos.Honestly, you should do that anyway.He’s not getting any younger and would love to see you.There’s nothing to prevent you from going to the Stormlands. You exiled yourself beyond the Wall. I don’t even really understand why you’re in Winterfell now, I’m just glad that you are.”

“It was Ghost, actually,” Jon explained, happy to have a way out of the argument.“A little over a month ago, he just started heading south, and I followed him.He didn’t leave me behind, exactly, but he wasn’t going to come back either.I didn’t worry when it was obvious he was headed for Winterfell.I thought it was because of you.”

Jon smiled, but Arya’s face fell into a grim line as her fingers fisted in the material of her shift. The sudden change awakened every fraternal instinct in Jon and any frustration he felt melted away as he knelt in front of his sister and took her face in his hands. “Arya, what’s wrong?”

She took in a shaky breath and grasped onto his arms until he released her face and took her hands instead.“It’s Davos, my Davos,” she clarified unnecessarily.“I’d almost forgotten what with your arrival and realizing I’m pregnant again, but he had a dream that he was inside Ghost when we first arrived a little over a month ago.”

“How do you know that’s what it was?”

“Davos said he looked down and saw his white paws in the snow. And then he described Tormund, and a very sad man that he didn’t want to be sad anymore.”

Jon nodded, a little perturbed that Arya had recognized him through sadness alone.“And why does that scare you?”

Arya looked down at him with tears in her eyes and she squeezed his hands more tightly. “He’s so funny and full of life and I don’t want him to be like Bran,” she replied in a rush, choking back a sob.

“It’s alright. It’s alright,” Jon soothed, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her head to his shoulder.“It doesn’t mean your Davos will be like Bran.”

“What does it mean?” Arya asked, her face still pressed into his neck.

“We Starks have the blood of the First Men, same as the Free Folk,” Jon told her gently, stroking her hair as he sat on the arm of the chair she was in. “That same blood is strong in your Davos.He has the Stark look, just like us.He’s probably a warg.”

“A warg? Like in Old Nan’s stories?” she asked, looking up at him.

Jon nodded. “A warg can enter an animal’s mind.A good one can control them. It usually starts while the person is dreaming.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m one,” Jon admitted. “I didn’t really know how to control it until I went to live with the Free Folk for good. Have you ever had a dream that you were walking in an animal’s skin? Nymeria, maybe?”

Arya nodded slowly. “Only when I’ve been in the Riverlands. She roams there with her pack.”

“I think being somewhat near helps,” Jon explained.“That’s probably why Davos dreamed he was inside Ghost.We weren’t that far away, and there’s a blood connection.There are still quite a few wargs among the Free Folk. It doesn’t mean Davos will be like Bran.”

“But that’s how it started for Bran,” Arya said, pulling away from him and wiping her eyes.“He would walk in Summer’s skin when he slept. What if—”

“Arya, none of us understand what Bran really is or how it works,” Jon reminded her, taking her face in his hands and making her look at him.“The few left from beyond the Wall that remember the Children of the Forest don’t know that much about theThree Eyed Raven, but they did remember they can live a long time, hundreds of years even. I don’t think you need to worry about your son becoming like Bran.”

“I miss him,” she said quietly.

“So do I,” Jon agreed, kissing the top of her head. “I said goodbye to him when I left for the wall, and I suppose that really was the last time I saw my brother.”

“He came to Storm’s End a couple of years ago for a visit. Told me he remembers what it was like to be Brandon Stark, but that it wasn’t quite the same as being Brandon Stark.”

“We’re none of us the people we were the day we left Winterfell. Do you ever regret leaving?”

“It’s not as though I had a choice,” Arya replied, standing up from the chair and wrapping a blanket from the foot of the bed about her shoulders. “I sometimes wish that Father had refused to become Hand, but then I remember I would have been married off and forced to have some lord’s children regardless of how I felt about him. That’s not me. It never would have been me.”

Jon smirked and looked down at the floor, all but biting his tongue to keep from retorting Arya’s claim.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, lightly kicking his shin with her bare foot. “I did go off and marry a high lord and have his children. But I stand beside my husband, not behind him. Half the time, I stand in front of him, despite his protests. I’m not a broodmare to Gendry. And if I had never left Winterfell with Father, I would have never known him, or any man who would respect who I am quite like he does. Am I glad about the things that happened to all of us after we left Winterfell? Of course not. But I think we ultimately have to find the good in the bad, like a smith forging weapons from a lump of rock.”

Jon scoffed. “Wonder how you came up with that example,” he muttered.

“Shut it,” She chided before continuing, “I thought once that running from all the bad things that had happened to me and the ones I had done myself was the best thing to do. I might have actually done it if Gendry had died after the wound he took in King’s Landing, and never come back to a place where they would call our son a bastard. Even that would have been a mistake, though. Running away never fixes things, it just leaves them broken. And then they fester and rot and hurt you even worse. You have to face what’s happened before you can move on.”

“You’re not exactly being subtle, Arya,” he groaned, knowing her speech was directed more toward him than any sort of reminiscence on her past.

“Subtlety was never a Stark trait, and I don’t see anybody but Starks in this room,” she replied matter-of-factly.

Jon shook his head, resigned.“I’ll think about it,” he promised.

Arya then fixed him with a stare he presumed she used on her children while she disciplined them. “If you do decide to leave, let me know first,” she warned. “I don’t think I’ll have need to sneak to the larder this time, so I won’t be able to catch you leaving in the courtyard.”

“If you’d come to your own wedding feast, you wouldn’t have needed to steal from the larder, and I would have said goodbye.”

That was a lie, and the way Arya’s eyes narrowed toward him told him that she knew it.

“All right,” Jon relented under the scrutiny. “Whether I go back North or to Storm’s End, I will let you know.”

Arya nodded curtly. “Thank you.”

He stood and wrapped his arms around her and she allowed herself to be cocooned against his chest. He stroked her back as he said, “Sometimes, I think I miss Arya Underfoot, but then I look at the warrior and mother and queen that you are, and I’m glad Arya Underfoot grew up.”

She pulled back slightly and looked up at him, resting her chin on his chest. “And I’m glad that after everything you’re still our Jon Snow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At a certain point, I just threw up my hands and said, “good enough” and moved onto Jon’s conversation with Arya. The difficulty of writing this chapter is one reason it’s taken me so long to get it posted. Updates should be a little quicker now that I’m past this monster.  
> Some of you might feel I’ve let Sansa off too easily, but I am planning some POV chapters for her that explore her reaction and subsequent guilt for her actions because, love her and her overall character growth as I do, D&D let her off with an extreme minimum of emotional/actual consequences.  
> Also, this is posted from my phone, so who knows what it looks like.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me! See you again soon!


	11. Sisters, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeeey. So sorry. I blame Star Wars. This chapter has almost no Gendrya in it and it is primarily Sansa's POV.

Sansa had woken with a terrible need to relieve her bladder. She supposed it was better than the atrocious morning sickness that left her nearly bedridden when she was carrying Brian. Tristran had stirred, but easily acquiesced when she told him he could go back to sleep. While her husband was snoring softly upon her return to the bed, she found that she was fully awake and unable to return to such a restful state. 

She risked opening the door to the balcony. She half expected the sickly and familiar smell of the city, but instead received the crisp smell of the sea. She wrapped her dressing gown around herself tightly and looked over the railing. Looking down, she saw her good brother walking toward the remains of the Keep. She smiled at the sight of him. Arya had once told her she called him “bull” because he was stubborn. Watching his determined stomping, however, Sansa also suspected it had something to do with the way he moved. Arya and her husband were as much a study in contrasts as Sansa and Arya were.

Sansa chided herself for not knowing that there was something between Arya and the young blacksmith Jon had brought with him to Winterfell. She had no clue there had ever been anything between them until after they had both separately left the North for Kings Landing.By that time, Tristran Maegyr had already stumbled into Sansa’s life and changed it irrevocably.

…

_There had been a brief period after Jon had gone to Dragonstone, and before Arya arrived, that Sansa had been left in Winterfell with Bran.At the time, she had been managing Little Finger which kept her from her brother’s scrutiny.But with Arya, Jon, and the Northern army gone, there was little that kept her out of his company.Consequently, she had been filling her days with as much busyness as she possibly could.She didn’t fully understand what Bran was anymore, but she knew that he could see what she had done.She didn’t want the guilt his gaze would cause._

_There were still a lot of people in Winterfell. The bulk of the army might have marched south, but there were still many men and women who needed to recover from their injuries in the Long Night. Some of them had recovered enough to help rebuild the castle’s crumbling ramparts, but many others were still convalescing.Alys Karstark had fallen wounded in the godswood and was nearly buried beneath corpses and snow before someone realized she was alive.Samwell Tarly was unsure if she would survive her wounds, some of which were on the inside, but she had pulled through so far.The not-quite-maester was cautiously optimistic, but the young woman was only rarely conscious. Sansa didn’t sit vigil by Lady Karstark’s bed every day, but when she had a moment, she would bring her stitching and relieve whoever was with the young woman at the time.It gave Sansa some much needed peace and quiet, and a way to avoid her brother’s piercing gaze._

_“My lady?” a voice croaked, drawing Sansa’s attention away from the pattern in her hands._

_Sansa looked up and set her stitching aside as she attempted a soothing smile for Alys Karstark. “Hello,” she said softly. “It’s been a few hours since last you woke, so they told me.You shouldn’t try to get up.”_

_“I don’t think I could,” Alys replied sadly.“My leg.It hurts so much I…”_

_“When Samwell returns, he’s bringing milk of the poppy for the pain,” Sansa told her, squeezing her hand. “Your leg and hip were very badly broken.”_

_“I could tell that, my lady,” Alys choked out, trying small movements to make herself more comfortable and not succeeding because of the pained expression on her face was any indication. “Is-is Lord Greyjoy well?”_

_Sansa stilled at the sound of his name, but quickly replaced the mask of serenity that had surely fallen from her face. “Theon, I mean Lord Greyjoy, was killed in the godswood, my lady.”_

_“Oh. Oh, I knew that,” Alys replied, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry, my lady. I know he was dear to you.”_

_Sansa managed a smile. “In the end he was a Stark as much as a he was a Greyjoy.”_

_“His is a great loss to the North then,” Alys said. “I don’t think anyone has told me of Lady Mormont’s fate.”_

_“She fell slaying a giant,” Sansa told the other woman, a sad pride resonating in her voice. “Her cousin, Ser Jorah, fell as well.”_

_Alys blinked as the weight of Sansa’s words settled in her mind. “So, House Mormont is gone?”_

_Sansa nodded. “And House Umber fell before the Long Night. I am glad that you are recovering, Lady Karstark. It would not do for the North to lose three great houses in the course of one winter.”_

_Alys’s eyebrows arched upward in surprise. “Thank you for that, my lady, but I didn’t think you much cared for me or my family.”_

_Sansa took a deep breath and smiled down at the other woman. “I did not like that your father betrayed my brother’s trust, and that your brother conspired with Ramsay Bolton, who was I can say without reservation the most evil person in the world. But you proved your loyalty to the North when you arrived at our call, even after the news of my brother’s decision reached you.”_

_Alys’s brow furrowed as she chose her next words with great effort. “I think your brother was right in what he did. We would not have been able to stave off the Night King without Targaryen queen’s armies and dragons.”_

_Sansa’s jaw shifted without her permission. “My sister said much the same thing.”_

_“Is Lady Arya about? May I thank her for what she did?”_

_“She wouldn’t care for that sentiment,” Sansa said, placing a soft smile across her lips. “And my sister left a fortnight ago without a word to anyone. My brother, Jon, and the Dragon Queen and all their armies left not long after.”_

_Alys blinked in surprise. “A fortnight? How long has it been since the battle?”_

_“Less than a moon’s turn.”_

_The bedridden woman gaped. “I don’t know much about war, but surely even the Unsullied need more rest than that.”_

_“I said as much, but she would not listen. And my brother is bound to follow his queen’s command,” Sansa said darkly, averting her eyes to the fireplace._

_“Is that why you don’t like her, my lady? Because she wants to push our men too hard?”_

_Sansa slowly looked back at the other woman and shook her head. “It’s not a matter of like or dislike. She only cares about the Iron Throne, and perhaps my brother, though I am not even certain of that anymore. I have seen firsthand what people are willing to do to sit on that ugly chair. I cannot trust anyone who wants it, and-and I’m not even convinced she has any right to the throne anyway.”_

_“What do you mean, my lady?”_

_Sansa realized then she had said too much. She thought about the recently legitimized Lord Baratheon and how he might have the best claim now. She opened her mouth to give that excuse when the door burst open._

_“I’m sorry, my lady,” Gilly said quickly, slightly out of breath, “but you’re needed in the courtyard. A Lord Glover has arrived with a host of workmen.”_

_Sansa’s eyes widened at Gilly’s words and she felt her face begin to flush with anger._

_“That coward dares show his face in this castle?” Alys asked, echoing Sansa’s silent sentiments._

_“Apparently so,” Sansa replied rising from her chair. “Gilly, would you mind staying with Lady Karstark until your husband returns with her medicine?”_

_“Of course, m’lady,” Gilly said, nodding deferentially._

_Sansa stepped from the room and met Pod coming toward her._

_“The guards let him into the gates,” Pod reported. “He wanted to speak with you in the great hall, but Ser Brienne thought it best to keep him in the courtyard.”_

_“Good,” Sansa said firmly, pulling her gloves from where they were tucked into her belt. “That man has no place in Winterfell. Not anymore.”_

_Pod remained only one step behind her as they made their way through the castle. Sansa paused once to don the cloak a maid brought her before she ventured into the frigid chill of the morning. She held her head high as she stepped in the daylight and more Stark guards fell into step behind her and Pod. She easily spotted Lord Glover’s bald head as he was engaged in a loud argument with Ser Brienne._

_“Woman, if you do not let me in this instant—“”_

_“Woman?” Sansa interrupted. “That is no way to address at knight of the Seven Kingdoms and the sworn sword of the Lady of Winterfell.”_

_Lord Glover made an unintelligible and flustered sound of near apology as he nodded a bow in Sansa’s direction. Clearly, he continued, “My lady, I have brought craftsmen and laborers to assist in the rebuilding of Winterfell.”_

_Sansa looked over the crowd of men. Some were shivering under their threadbare cloaks, but they all looked strong and able and uncomfortable in their present predicament._

_“These men you’ve brought appear to be quite capable. Why were they not sent with your soldiers in our hour of need?” Sansa asked, loudly enough for all to hear._

_Lord Glover visibly bristled at the question, and quietly replied, “My lady, I believe you know my reasons.”_

_“And I’m sure others shared your opinion, but they still sent their men and women to fight and die to defend the North against the Dead. Lyanna Mormont publicly dressed down my brother, but she still fell slaying a giant. Alys Karstark nearly lost her life fighting alongside the Iron Born. They were once our enemies and they died defending the North. You are worse even than our enemies, Lord Glover. You have betrayed the North.” Sansa turned to the Stark guards and said, “Take him to the cells.”_

_The craftsmen tensed in their loose groups and looked uncertainly between them. But Lord Glover’s own guards stepped back and allowed the Stark men to take Glover by the arms. The wizened lord struggled against them, but they maintained their hold._

_“You cannot do this, girl,” Glover growled at her._

_Sansa narrowed her gaze and straightened to her full height, bringing her level to with the older man. “I am no girl. I am Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell. This is my home, as is the North, which you have betrayed. You have only one place in it: the cells. Take him down.”_

_The Stark men pulled Glover away, his protests reverberating throughout the courtyard. Sansa looked between the two guards and said, “You did not defend your lord?”_

_The older of the two men replied, “I fought with your brother, m’lady. I ran from the Red Wedding. I never wanted to run or hide from a fight again, but Lord Glover wouldn’t let us join the fight. I should have disobeyed, but I didn’t. I hope you can forgive us, m’lady.”_

_Sansa shook her head. “There is nothing to forgive,” she told him, almost feeling the warmth of her father’s hand on her shoulder as she said the words. “You, none of you,” she began, addressing the crowd, “are under any obligation to stay. I would, of course, appreciate any help you might offer, but I will not demand it if you.”_

_“M’lady, I think we all agree with what Corwin has said,” one of the craftsmen, a large and burly stonemason by the look of him, replied as he stepped forward from the crowd. “Winterfell is the center of the North and the North is at its best when the Starks are safe inside of it. We weren’t allowed to defend this castle, but we would be grateful to help rebuild it.”_

_Sansa met the man’s eyes and smiled at him. “Thank you very much...”_

_“Asher, m’lady,” the stonemason supplied._

_“Thank you, Asher. I cannot guarantee a bed for every man, but you will have a warm place to sleep and food. It looks as though some of you could use warmer clothing as well. We will see to it.”_

_She looked around until she spied Maester Wolkan. She motioned for him to come and she stepped back to let him make the arrangements the craftsmen needed. She turned toward the keep, Ser Brienne and Pod taking a place on either side of her. But the guard, Corwin, stepped forward and said, “Begging your pardon, m’lady, but what will happen to Lord Glover?”_

_Sansa paused, pursing her lips in consideration. She truly wasn’t sure what Lord Glover’s fate would or should be. She did know that she did not have the authority to pass the sentence herself. Should Jon remain Warden of the North or become King of all of Westeros, the fate of a lord would be his decision. She finally took a deep breath and said, “The king shall decide his fate.”_

_Corwin’s forehead wrinkled. “But, m’lady, I thought the king weren’t the king anymore.”_

_“The wars are not yet won, we do not know the future until then,” Sansa explained shortly, before offering a nod and turning away. She caught sight of Bran, who was staring at her from his chair. His gaze, as usual, seemed to pierce through her skin to her very soul and she had to look at the snowy ground as she moved toward the keep with Pod and Brienne close behind._

_Before she reached the steps, she heard shouting and turned to find a figure with dark hair skidding to a stop as one of the guards from the front gate grasped his arm. The stranger spun around and landed a fist beneath his captor’s armor, winding him. He ducked beneath the swing of the other guard with a speed and grace Sansa would have usually attributed to her sister. The man ran from the guards in the general direction of the castle. Brienne stepped forward with her sword drawn, but the man skidded to a stop with his eyes locked on Sansa. His gaze was so intense, in fact, she felt the need to look away, but resisted and stared back at the apparent intruder with as much sternness as she could muster._

_“You-you couldn’t be Lady Catelyn,” he said, his eyes wide._

_Sansa blinked in surprise, and Ser Brienne also flinched at the mention of Sansa’s mother. It was not what she would have ever suspected to come out of this foreigner’s mouth. She found herself staring not only because of the comparison, but because this man was startlingly good looking. He was certainly no Northman. His dark hair and slightly dusky skin marked him as being from a warmer clime, perhaps Dorne or somewhere in Essos. He wasn’t overly tall, but something about the way he carried himself reminded her of Oberyn Martell. She felt herself staring at him, but when she met his eyes, she found she was not alone; he was staring right back at her._

_The guards caught up after what felt like a few hours of contemplation, but must have been in reality only a few seconds. They grabbed a hold of the stranger’s arms while he stared at their lady and forced him to his knees._

_“What is the meaning of all of this?” Brienne demanded from the guards._

_“This man tried to sneak in after Glover’s men,” the older guard, Ardis, reported._

_“I wasn’t sneaking, I was just walking,” the stranger protested._

_“Walking through our gates without permission,” Ardis grumbled, knocking the smaller man’s shoulders. “I could tell he were a foreigner, and all of them should be gone now, so we turned him away.”_

_Brienne turned her blue gaze on the stranger and said, “Then how have you come to be in this courtyard?”_

_He smirked. “I’m not sure you’re aware, but there’s a sizable gap in your wall. I had climb over a bit of rubble, but no one was there to stop me.”_

_Sansa pressed her lips together to stifle the grin threatening to erupt on her face. Brienne shot a glare at Podrick, who was openly grinning, and the young man quickly excused himself to check the wall’s defenses.The stranger was also smirking and his captor guards were becoming more sheepish by the minute._

_Sansa straightened her shoulders, looked at the young man, and said, “You’ve explained how you came to be within Winterfell’s gates, but you have not explained_ why _you are here. I know it is not polite to remark on such things, but you are clearly not a Northman.As far as I was aware, all able-bodied foreigners had left our borders.Why have you come?”_

_He casually shrugged, unaffected by Sansa’s most demanding tone. “I came to see where my sister was queen.”_

_Sansa arched an eyebrow at him.“There hasn’t been a queen in the North for over three hundred years,” she informed him._

_“I beg your pardon, my lady, but that isn’t strictly accurate,” Brienne interjected._

_Sansa blinked and turned her eyes toward the stranger. He smiled warmly and that only sent a shiver down her spine as she thought of the niece or nephew she never got to meet, her brother without his head, and her mother bleeding in the river._

_“Talisa Maegyr was my sister,” the stranger said. “I know you can’t be Lady Catelyn, but that must make you Sansa; the sister of my sister’s husband. I’m Tristran.”_

_Sansa took a deep breath and met his gaze.She focused on steadying her voice and said, “I’m afraid I was not familiar with my good sister, and have no way of knowing if what you say is true. Have you any proof of who you are?”_

_Tristran reached for the satchel slung across his torso and the guards reached for their weapons. He held his hands up and said, “Can I reach into my bag without losing my head?”_

_Sansa nodded her assent and the guards relaxed, although she saw that Brienne tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword. Tristran slowly reached into his satchel and produced a creased packet of parchment. He handed it to Sansa reverently. She looked down to see thin lines of what she knew to be Valyrian._

_“I’m afraid I cannot read this, and there is no one here that can,” she informed him matter-of-factly._

_“The contents of the letter are not my proof, my lady,” he said, stepping closer and folding the letter together revealing the Stark sigil preserved in wax.“I don’t think there’s been a Stark who would have written a letter in High Valyrian for a few hundred years other than my sister.”_

_“Quite,” Sansa agreed, blinking back tears as she handed him the letter._

_“I have to say,” Brienne said, addressing Tristran as she sheathed her sword, “you do share a look with your sister.”_

_His face softened as a smile split it.“You knew Talisa?” he asked, the hope evident in his voice._

_Brienne looked slightly abashed as she replied, “I met her once.I did not truly know her.”_

_Tristran nodded sadly as he replaced the letter in his satchel. “Few did on this side of the Narrow Sea, I think.I’m glad to have met someone who at least remembers her face, although I suppose we haven’t properly met.”_

_“I’m Brienne.”_

_“Ser Brienne of Tarth,” Sansa interjected. “And you were correct in your earlier assumption; I’m Sansa Stark, the elder of Robb’s two sisters.”_

_“She is the Lady of Winterfell,” Brienne added._

_“It is a pleasure, my lady, Ser,” he replied. “Should-should I bow.”_

_Sansa felt a blush creeping up her neck although she wasn’t precisely sure why. “Certainly not,” she answered quickly. “We are family by marriage after all.” She looked at the guards and said, “Please return to your post.”_

_They nodded sheepishly and beat a hasty retreat. Sansa attempted to smile and said, “You are welcome to stay here, although I doubt Winterfell holds what you were looking for.”_

_“I’m not actually looking for anything. Mostly, I’m running away. Just like she did,” he explained._

_“From what are you running away, exactly?” Sansa asked, her lately developed suspicious nature tingling._

_“Well, I left my mother and father in Volantis a while ago, but I suppose I’m really running from my employer: the Iron Bank.”_

_Sansa arched a single eyebrow. “It is my understanding the Iron Bank has funded Cersei Lannister’s purchase of The Golden Company’s services.”_

_“A poor investment of ever there was one,” Tristran replied. “A lion might be patient and cunning, but it is no match for a dragon, especially one ridden by the Mhysa.”_

_“Mhysa?”_

_“It’s what they call Daenerys Targaryen in Slaver’s Bay or the Bay of Dragons or whatever they choose to call themselves now,” he explained. “The place has fallen back into chaos. Supposedly, she left the Second Sons in charge, but they are an army of sell swords. What experience do they have in keeping peace? Anyway, it’s entirely possible I’m no longer employed by the Iron Bank.”_

_“Oh? Why?”_

_“Well, I wasn’t supposed to go north when I got off the boat.What they don’t know is that the North of Westeros was the only reason I got on the boat in the first place,” Tristran explained with a smile._

_“Forgive me, but you seem very eager to come to a place that must only mean tragedy for you and your family,” Sansa told him._

_He cocked his head slightly and regarded her with a grin that prodded at Sansa’s ire._

_“Are you this suspicious of all foreigners? I would have liked to have seen your reception of the Mhysa and her armies of Unsullied and Dothraki if you are.”_

_Her ire became anger and she opened her mouth to reply, but Samwell Tarly pushed Bran into her periphery and her brother interrupted, “Tristran Maegyr. It is good that you have finally come to us.”_

_Tristran’s brows knit together as he looked down at Bran. “I don’t believe we have met...”_

_“This is my brother, Brandon Stark,” Sansa introduced tersely._

_Tristran’s brows unknotted and arched upward. “My sister believed you dead.”_

_“A great many people believe that. Some people believe it still.”_

_Sansa looked at her brother at the note of sadness she detected in his voice. His face, however, betrayed no emotion._

_“I still don’t understand how you know who I am,” Tristran told Bran._

_“I saw you coming,” Bran answered simply._

_Tristran’s gaze toward her brother narrowed and Sansa thought she saw anger settle across his features. “You see visions in the flames?”_

_“My gifts do not come from the Lord of Light.”_

_Tristran’s features softened. “That’s a relief. The Lord of Light’s a bit of a cunt.” His eyes flickered to Sansa’s and he winced slightly before saying, “Beg your pardon, ladies.”_

_“I’ve been exposed to much worse than foul language,” she replied coolly._

_Confusion flickered across Tristran’s features. He opened his mouth to speak, but Bran’s voice said instead, “You’ve already offered our good-brother our hospitality, have you not, Sansa?”_

_Sansa glared down at her brother, who was staring back placidly. She envied his seemingly endless supply of peace as she felt a blush of anger creep up her throat. She snapped her eyes back toward Tristran who was looking between the siblings in apparent apprehension._

_“Of course you must stay,” Sansa told him tightly._

_“Sam, could you show Master Maegyr to the keep?” Bran asked, his eyes focused on Tristran._

_“Of course,” Sam replied cheerily. “I’d like to ask you about healers in Essos. What are they called again?”_

_Tristran startled for a moment and pulled his gaze from Sansa’s face and looked past Bran toward Sam’s portly, smiling visage. “Uh, physicians,” he said finally. “We call them physicians.”_

_Sam started leading him away, chatting happily about a letter he’d read at the Citadel. Tristran, however, was clearly only half paying attention as he looked over his shoulder and locked his eyes on Sansa’s before he tore himself away to focus on Sam’s chittering. Sansa looked down at Bran to find him staring up at her._

_“Sansa, would you mind taking me to the godswood?” he asked, though he did not make it sound like a question._

_“Of course not,” she replied with far too much brightness even for her own liking. “Ser Brienne, could you check on Podrick’s progress with the guarding of the walls. I’ll be quite safe, I’m sure.”_

_“As you say, my lady,” Brienne replied, looking between the siblings uncertainly before nodding and turning away._

_Sansa escaped her brother’s gaze and moved to the back of his chair toward the well-worn path to the godswood._

_“He is who he says he is,” Bran stated._

_“I didn’t doubt it,” she replied._

_“You did. Even he doubted the letter would be sufficient proof,” Bran continued flatly. “His curiosity brought him here, but he will prove useful I believe.”_

_“How so?”_

_“His connection with the Iron Bank for one. And he speaks Valyrian and even some Dothraki.”_

_“The Dragon Queen’s armies have left. What use is that now?”_

_“If Jon takes Daenerys’s place as you desire, he will need someone to help him communicate with the armies.”_

_Sansa faltered slightly at her brother’s matter-of-fact tone.She recovered, however, and pushed him beneath the broken archway toward the weirwood. “I only want Jon to take what is rightfully his,” she replied in measured tones._

_“Even though he doesn’t want it?”_

_“Perhaps that’s what makes him best suited for it. Anyone I’ve ever known who pursued the Iron Throne was not worthy of it.”_

_Bran was eerily silent as they finished their sojourn to the center of the godswood. She situated Bran in his usual spot and when he said nothing, she turned to leave._

_“Do you not want to be queen?” he asked, stopping her in her tracks.“Once, it was all you ever wanted.”_

_A chill ran down her spine even as her blood boiled. She turned and found him staring straight at her; straight through her.Occasionally, she thought she would see her brother in this specter before her, but that was not the case at the moment.Brandon Stark was gone.She was facing the Three-Eyed Raven._

_“I was young, and stupid, and knew nothing of cruelty,” she told him, biting off every word._

_“And what is it you want now, Sansa?” he asked._

_“I want to be safe,” she admitted.“I want our home to be safe.I want the North to be safe.”_

_“And you don’t think that would happen with Daenerys as queen?”_

_Sansa squared her shoulders and breathed the cold air through her nostrils, letting it chill her veins and calm her voice.“You did not hear what our apparent good brother said about the cities she liberated in Essos. They are in chaos because she did not know how to rule or leave behind a system to rule.She’s a conqueror, and once she has conquered, she moves on without a care to what she leaves behind. We cannot trust her to protect us.She came North for Jon, not for the people she claims as hers.Do you remember what Father used to say? ‘The people are not here for us; we are here for them.’ She might have freed people from slavery, but she from what I can see, she has only freed them to die.”_

_Bran blinked once. “You might be right,” he acquiesced. “The Iron Fleet was lying in wait at Dragonstone.Rhaegal is dead and Cersei has captured Missandei._

_Sansa felt her stomach lurch. She had disagreed with Missandei in the crypts, but the woman had protected the children, and Sansa would not wish being a captive of Cersei Lannister on her worst enemy, much less someone she respected._

_“Tyrion and Varys have convinced Daenerys to parlay with Cersei,” Bran continued, unfazed by the pained expression on Sansa’s face._

_She shook her head.It was unfathomable that Tyrion had become so blind. Missandei was dead the moment Cersei took her.A parlay would only force those that cared about the woman to watch her inevitable end._

_“A parlay will not end well,” Sansa said darkly, looking at the ground._

_“Probably not,” Bran agreed. “Tyrion told Varys.”_

_Sansa looked up.“Told him what?”_

_“What you wanted him to tell,” Bran replied simply before staring past her.“The Spider has always supported a Targaryen restoration, but he already had his doubts about Daenerys. He now has another option.I’m not certain what he will do now.He always has a web to weave, though.The new Lord Baratheon may still yet have a part to play, though I am not sure for whom.”_

_Sansa was no longer sure Bran was actually speaking to her, or simply voicing his thoughts aloud.She was unsurprised that Tyrion had told Varys about Jon; it was what she expected him to do.She was, however, startled at her brother’s mention of the blacksmith-turned-lord of the Stormlands. “What part could Lord Baratheon possibly have to play? He doesn’t even have support from the other houses, although Ser Brienne has written to her father at Tarth for his support, so I suppose he has at least one ally. But Daenerys only gave him the lordship in the first place to buy his loyalty.”_

_“A poor investment,” Bran stated, still not meeting her eyes. “His first loyalty will always be to Arya.”_

_Sansa was certain she had misheard him. “Arya? Why would he be loyal to Arya?”_

_Bran’s eyes met Sansa’s and she saw something akin to warmth in them. “He loves her.It surprised him, I think. But his love runs strong and deep; a trait running back to his Durrandon blood rather than the Baratheon, I think.”_

_“Loves her?” Sansa asked, laughing. “Does he love her because she saved us all from the Night King? It’s a noble sentiment, of course, but it is not a basis for abiding love and loyalty.”_

_Bran tilted his head and a slight smile graced his lips. “He has known Arya since the day the Lannisters took Father’s head. She told him who she was, and he kept her secret.They protected each other on the road, at Harrenhall, with the Brotherhood. And then Melisandre separated them. He nearly lost his life and Arya nearly lost herself.And then they found each other here. She asked him to lay with her before the Dead came, and he did because he cannot find it in himself to refuse her anything.”_

_Sansa choked on her own breath. Jealousy wrapped its fingers around her guts as she remembered the defiant little girl who laughed at Sansa’s desire to be married and mother princes. That Arya should know the love of a man while Sansa had known nothing of the sort seemed the cruelest trick the gods could have played. But the rational side of Sansa’s mind quickly quashed her jealousy. Arya had returned almost a stranger. The loud little girl who laughed at Sansa was replaced with a quiet and cold assassin. She could not envy the things Arya had gone through, and couldn’t begrudge her a piece of human comfort in the face of death._

_“Does-does she love him?”_

_“I’m not sure,” Bran admitted with a minuscule shrug. “She refused to marry him, but I think she may have simply forgotten how to feel.She is not the only one.”_

_Sansa blinked away tears.“Do you spy on us all the time? Is that why you are always beneath this tree?” she asked him angrily._

_“I thought there was something other than revelation of Jon’s parentage that spurred Arya away from us without a word,” Bran explained. “I found far more than I wished to.”_

_She wanted to laugh at how embarrassed Bran looked. Arya had never had much decorum; Sansa doubted she would have any while having her way with a baseborn blacksmith. It was heartening as well to know that there was something of her brother left in Bran and he was still capable of such discomfort._

_“You should ask Tristran what the letter says,” Bran said, pulling Sansa out of her own thoughts. “I believe you will find it enlightening.”_

_His eyes rolled up and became pure white letting her know the conversation with her brother was definitely over._

_…_

_The evening meal was as lively as it had been during the feast after the Long Night. The sudden arrival of Tormund Giantsbane was responsible for that. He had come back south in search of Ghost, who had run away. Bran told him not to worry and Tormund then invited himself to stay awhile. Sansa spent the first part of the evening watching for the ginger wildling to renew his overtures to Brienne. The knight had done her best to hide her feelings, but Sansa saw the woman’s hurt after the Kingslayer’s sudden departure. Tormund had made no secret of his attraction to Brienne in the past and Sansa was concerned his behavior might make things intolerable. Tormund, however, was more interested in pestering Tristran about how soft the Volantene appeared. Tristran took Tormund’s barbs with a smile even as the much larger man further invaded his personal space._

_Tormund, after at least his third cup of ale, leaned over saying he could snap Tristran’s neck if the fancy struck him. Tristran smiled and nodded his head down toward the knife he had pointed at Tormund’s balls. The high table and the great hall froze for a tense moment until Tormund laughed uproariously and declared his approval of the foreigner._

_“This one knows how to sneak,” Tormund declares motioning to Tristran and sloshing his ale in the process. “Like the Little Wolf, I think.”_

_Tristran cocked an eyebrow. “Little Wolf?”_

_“I believe he’s referring to my sister, Arya,” Sansa supplied. “She is small, even for a woman, and is formidable with…many weapons.”_

_Tristran looked between Brienne and Sansa and said, “Is it usual for women of the North to be trained in war?”_

_“I am not originally from the North,” Brienne explained. “I’m from the Stormlands, further south.”_

_“And I am not trained in any combat to speak of,” Sansa said, looking down at her food._

_“Really? I’m fairly certain that needle you wear round your neck could easily kill a man if it pierced him in the right place,” Tristran said casually._

_“Very true!” Tormund agreed loudly._

_Sansa shifted under the scrutiny. “Women of this land had to be trained to face the evils of the Long Night,” she said. “It was the command of our king, my brother, but it is not a part of our tradition.”_

_“Why was your sister different?”_

_Sansa met his eyes. “Arya was always…precocious. My father indulged her. When we were first in King’s Landing, Father procured her a ‘dancing master’ that I’ve since realized was some sort of swordsman from Braavos.”_

_“Dancing master? Was it water dancing?” Tristran asked with a smile._

_“I believe she called it that, yes,” Sansa replied. “Arya received training beyond water dancing when she was in Braavos.”_

_“Ah,” Tristran said, his smile fading. “Braavos can be a dangerous place, and it can makes dangerous people.”_

_Tormund barked a laugh. “The Little Wolf is second most dangerous woman I’ve ever met.”_

_“Who is the first?”_

_Sansa almost jumped at Tormund’s smile and finger pointed in her direction. “Me?” She scoffed. “You think me dangerous with Ser Brienne sitting mere feet away?”_

_“Oh yes,” Tormund replied. “You are as much a wolf as that crow brother of yours, and you are a ginger.”_

_Sansa smirked. “I do believe you might be biased in your opinion.”_

_Tormund laughed and Sansa was relieved when conversation ebbed to another topic. Eventually, the members of their table dissipated until only Sansa, Tristran, and Brienne remained. Sansa picked at her slice of fruitcake, not really paying attention to the conversation._

_“You know, I don’t know about dangerous, but my sister certainly thought your mother was one of the strongest women she had ever met,” Tristran addressed himself to her._

_Sansa smiled, trying with some difficulty to remember the warmth of her mother’s smile. “I believe she was strong, in her own way.”_

_“She was,” Brienne agreed, “and courageous too.”_

_More moments passed in silence before Tristran decided to speak up again. “I am not from a very religious family. My sister said in her letter that you other was very religious. Was that true?”_

_Sansa nodded. “She followed the Faith of the Seven. It is more prominent in the South than it is here in the North.”_

_“Seems like the Seven want their followers to feel guilty all the time if what my sister said in her letters was true.”_

_“What do you mean? What did your sister say?” Sansa asked, her brother’s advice about the letter._

_“She said your mother was making something called a ‘prayer wheel’ when she believed the Iron Born had killed your younger brothers. She told Talisa about the times she had made them before.”_

_“She made one after Bran’s fall, I’m sure,” Sansa said. “I don’t know when she would have made the other one.”_

_“Talisa said it was when your brother was very young and near death with the pox.”_

_“I don’t recall Robb ever being so ill, although I suppose I wouldn’t have been born yet.”_

_“It wasn’t my sister’s husband who was sick; it was Jon Snow.”_

_Sansa blinked and stared at Tristran. His face was open and earnest, and he would have no reason to lie. “I-I find that hard to believe. My mother did not much care for Jon.”_

_Tristran nodded. “Talisa said he is your father’s bastard. Your mother’s dislike was, I think, understandable in some ways. She had prayed for Jon’s death, but watching the child die of a horrible disease, she knew she was wrong to pray for such a thing. So, she prayed for the gods to save him. She promised she would ask your father to give him a true name she would treat him as a true son.”_

_Sansa’s insides started to twist in dread. “But, but Mother never did that for Jon,” she said, struggling to keep her voice level._

_“Talisa said as much. She also said that Lady Catelyn believed that breaking faith with her gods is what ultimately lead to your family’s poor fortune. Thoughts like that are why I don’t believe in gods anymore.”_

_Sansa barely heard his last sentence as she was already pushing away from table._

_“My lady?” Brienne said, starting to rise from her seat._

_Sansa waved her off and said, “I’m only going to the godswood.”_

_She made her way through the castle halls and into the cold night.She did not feel the chill as she marched under the arch and through the trees until she found Bran where she had left him earlier in the day._

_“Is it true?” she demanded. “Is everything that happened to us because Mother broke her word to the gods?”_

_Bran blinked at her, a small smile on his face. “I do not speak for the Seven. And I believe our family members fell victim to their own choices, rather than divine intervention.”_

_“Then why did you want me to know what was in the damned letter?” Sansa asked, her voice rising to a shout._

_Bran’s brow furrowed. “Our mother broke her word, and she saw the consequences of that all around her,” he replied calmly. “You have broken your word as well, Sansa. The consequences might not be felt by us, so far away from King’s Landing, but Jon, and Arya, and Tyrion will feel the consequences keenly. Missandei is dead.”_

_Sansa shook her head as tears started to roll down her cheeks. “Her fate was sealed the moment Cersei captured her. That is not my fault.”_

_“But you did plant the seeds of doubt,” Bran reminded her. “Missandei’s blood will only water them. And the consequences of that doubt will be suffered by the people you love and the people they love.”_

_“You are a hateful creature,” Sansa choked out as she stared at the being in Bran’s body._

_“And what are you?” he asked, evenly returning her gaze._

_She turned on her heel and walked quickly from the godswood and away from the Three-Eyed-Raven. Tears blurred her vision and she was not aware of where she was going until she ran into another person’s chest._

_“My lady, I did not mean to offend you.”_

_She looked up at Tristran and brushed the tears from her face. “I-I-you have not offended me. Why would you think that?”_

_“You ran away while I was speaking. What else would I think?” he said with a slight smile as he draped something across her shoulders. “I asked your maid for you cloak. You left without it. It’s very cold here.”_

_Sansa scoffed.“I am a Stark. The cold is in my blood.”_

_Tristran cocked his head before shaking it slightly. “I see the tears running down your face, my lady.I do not believe there is ice in your veins.”_

_“I certainly hope you’re right,” Sansa said, drawing her cloak more tightly about herself. She was grateful Tristran did not follow her. She wandered around the grounds and then the castle halls until she made her way to her chambers; chambers that had once belonged to her father and her mother. She removed her cloak and her most outer layer of clothing before opening the doors of the wardrobe. She withdrew a dust-covered box from the back and took it with her as she sat down on the bed. She opened it and found a wreath and twine. She was no longer sure if she believed the gods were real, but she hoped they were as she wound the twine around loose straw she found. She prayed for Jon, and Arya, and Tyrion. More long nights were coming._

* * *

 

“What are you doing?”

Sansa smiled back at her husband. “I find it difficult to sleep here,” she explained before motioning toward the balcony. “I’m not alone. I just saw Gendry stomping around down there.”

“Gendry has been robbed of the wolf that shares his bed,” Tristran grumbled, tossing the blankets aside. Sansa felt her face warm at the sight of his lithe, naked body. He never slept naked at Winterfell.

“It seems you are robbing me of the same thing,” he continued, walking toward her.

“I’m robbing you of nothing,” she replied, trying to remain collected as she stood and met him before he walked naked onto the balcony. “I was thinking about the day we met.”

“Ah,” he said with an easy smile. “I thought you would never trust me, then.”

Sansa kissed him softly. “I changed that night.”

Tristran wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips to the side of her face. “You didn’t change because of me, Sansa.”

“Of course not,” she said, leaning back just far enough to look him in the eye. “I made a choice myself, but I don’t think I could have done it without the the knowledge you brought me.”

“It’s been my pleasure to be of service, my lady,” he teased. “Now can my can wolf come back to bed so I can get some sleep?”

“Sleep is not what I had in mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE that Sansa became Queen in the North. I did not love that there was zero indication that she felt bad about what she did. I also love that scene between Catelyn and Talisa in season 2.
> 
> Thanks for coming back and reading again.


	12. Sisters, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a two-for-one deal! And Gendry and Arya appear in this chapter.  
> Actually, I've had the last two chapters partially written since they are in such different POV's for about three months. This one is in the perspective of another sister in this story, Bella Baratheon. Also note that the rating has gone up and the tags have changed for some accidental voyeurism. It's mature, but not completely explicit.  
> Thanks for still being here!

_Arya Stark was not quiet. The woman’s whimpering was what had drawn Bella back to the tent she shared with her brother. She expected to find them fucking furiously, clawing and biting in their anger. She even had the horrifying thought that Gendry might be too rough. He didn’t really seem the type, but Bella had never seen him so angry as he was arguing with Arya Stark. She didn’t find her brother angrily pounding into the small woman when she looked through the flap of the tent. Instead, she found Gendry still half clothed with his face pressed to the apex of Arya’s thighs licking and sucking like a man dying of thirst. Arya’s heels dug into the muscles of his bare back with each enthusiastic stroke of his tongue. Her tunic was bunched around her waist and hanging off one shoulder exposing one of her pert breasts. Gendry’s fingers toyed with the nipple of that breast with one hand while the other was committed to holding Arya’s writhing hips in place. Arya’s fingers grasped at the short hairs of Gendry’s head while while the other grasped so firmly at the pile of discarded clothes and blankets beneath them her knuckles were white. She was biting her lip so hard, Bella was surprised she hadn’t drawn blood._

_Bella couldn’t look away as Gendry abandoned Arya’s nipple and slid two fingers into her slick folds as he continued to suck at her bud. Arya let out a moan that made Bella blush, and Gendry’s other hand found Arya’s and laced his fingers through hers._

_Bella suddenly felt guilty and turned away from the scene. She had seen a lot of fucking in her life, but what she had witnessed wasn’t like those experiences in the brothel. It was almost holy they way they joined. It was as if Gendry was worshipping at the altar of her sex while Arya received his worship with similar religious zeal. Bella had never seen nor experienced anything quite like it, and the phrase ‘making love’ suddenly made sense._

_Another breathy moan filled the nearby air and a few soldiers started eyeing the tent curiously. Bella quickly found the group of musicians in the camp and encouraged them to play before Arya started screaming Gendry’s name. Jon Snow seemed like the understanding sort based on Bella’s limited experience, but there were some things good high born lads didn’t let happen to their little sisters, even if the little sister in question was definitely enjoying it._

_When the music had sufficiently distracted the nearby soldiers, she spotted a foreign figure stalking through the camp. The scars on his face flickered grotesquely in the firelight and she knew who he was from her brother’s vague description and the fact that he started toward the tent hung with Baratheon banners. She rushed to cut him off and he could have practically walked over her considering he was twice her size, but he took a moment to glare down at her before arching his lone eyebrow at her exposed cleavage._

_“What the fuck are you supposed to be?” he growled at her._

_Bella smiled sweetly in a way she was already positive would annoy this man. “I’m Bella, Gendry’s sister. You must be the Hound.”_

_He scoffed and said, “Little twat has a sister?”_

_“Clearly,” Bella replied. “If you’re looking for Arya Stark, she’s a bit occupied at the moment.”_

_“Occupied by your brother’s cock, no doubt,” the Hound mumbled._

_Bella smirked. “Yes, they’ve probably moved on from his tongue and fingers by now.”_

_“You’re a foul little thing, aren’t you?”_

_Bella swore she heard a hint of approval in his voice. “He found me in a brothel. What would you expect?”_

_The mirth faded from the Hound’s face and was replaced with anger. “What was the little twat doing in a brothel?”_

_Bella warmed at the protectiveness that suddenly appeared in the man before her. “He stumbled in during a storm; didn’t even realize where he was. Wound up bedding down in the stables,” she explained truthfully, with some carefully excluded details._

_The Hound harrumphed, but seemed to accept her explanation. “Where’s the wine?”_

_Bella motioned toward where the soldier’s mess had been set up. “Over there somewhere probably.”_

_He didn’t thank her, but he did move away from her brother’s tent where she could hear the faint slap of flesh on flesh. She almost sighed in relief at the sight of the Hound’s back, but she saw Ser Davos approaching with Gendry’s war hammer clutched in his good hand. She moved to intercept him and he sighed as he looked down at her._

_“Where is he?” Davos asked in his typically stern, but gentle manner._

_Bella clasped her hands behind her back and put on her sweetest smile. “He’s in his tent, and probably at least a few inches into Lady Arya as well.”_

_Davos rolled his eyes and sighed once more. “Must you be so crass?”_

_“No,” Bella replied sweetly, “but I doubt you wanted to go in and discover them for yourself.”_

_“You’re not wrong there,” he muttered._

_“Why do you need him, anyway?” she asked. “He could have gotten the hammer back in the morning.”_

_“It’s not just the hammer. Jon has a plan for King’s Landing in light of Daenerys’s wishes, but we need to set out for Storm’s End as soon as possible if it’s to succeed,” Davos explained._

_“The Dragon Queen gave Gendry Storm’s End. I’m not a mind-reader, but I don’t think Gendry will want something from someone who asked him to become a murderer,” Bella pointed out._

_“It’s not about kings and queens anymore,” the old man said gravely. “The people are going to be caught in the middle. Jon knows Cersei has no good intentions toward the people and he now doubts Daenerys’s intentions as well. The men garrisoned at Storm’s End are the closest soldiers we could rally.”_

_Bells quirked a dubious eyebrow. “And you think they’ll follow Gendry just because he looks like the Fat King before he got so fat?”_

_Davos shrugged. “Houses Tarth and Dondarrion have already pledged their support to Gendry’s claim if the ravens I’ve just received are true,” he explained.“And there are enough lords left in the Stormlands that want to be rid of Cersei, they’ll take what they can get.”_

_“And you think they’ll follow a bastard from Flea Bottom?”_

_“He’s a bastard with the support of one of the oldest houses in country.”_

_“I don’t think they’ll like Targaryens anymore than they do Lannisters.”_

_“I’m not talking about the Dragon Queen; I’m talking about the Starks.”_

_Bella shook her head.She knew she hadn’t gotten the whole story from her brother, but his failed proposal and subsequent broken heart were the topic of conversation the night they found one another. He knew that asking Arya Stark to be the lady of a castle had been his mistake. Bella was sure the threat against Jon Snow’s life was what had brought Arya to the camp. She did not believe that Arya Stark would stand by as a prop to strengthen her brother’s claim. That wasn’t her at all._

_“You realize she’s just fucking him right? And I’m not sure it’s anything more than that for her,” Bella warned, folding her arms across her chest._

_Davos rolled his eyes. “I don’t mean for Lady Arya to accompany us to Storm’s End, but there will be Stark men with us, men who wielded weapons Gendry made and witnessed his courage in the battle. Baratheon bannermen have already started to gather at Storm’s End.There are enough that remember the friendship between Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark.Never underestimate the power of sentiment, Bella.”_

_“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied with only a slight bit of sarcasm.“How will Baratheon men help the people of King’s Landing anyway?”_

_“I know a smuggler’s path that can be used to shepherd the people out,” Davos explained. “We just need enough men to protect them from Lannister forces, the mercenaries, or even the Dragon Queen’s armies.If Daenerys takes care of the Iron Fleet like I think she will, we’ll be able to get ships close enough to evacuate the people.”_

_“What ships?Did Gendry get a castle_ and _a fleet when he was handed the Baratheon name?”_

_“No, that will fall to me,” Davos grumbled.“I’ve a fr—well, colleague with ships we can use…if I can persuade him.I’ll have to figure out how I’m going to persuade him on the way.”_

_Bella smirked.“This ‘colleague’ of yours, does he like women?”_

_Davos’s eyebrows raised in unison. “How do you mean?”_

_“Let me be blunt: does he prefer cunts or cocks?”_

_“Bella, I can’t ask you to—”_

_“You’ve not asked anything,” she cut him off.“I haven’t got a lot of well-developed talents, Ser Davos, but I know how to persuade men, and I’m guessing you’ve let down this ‘colleague’ of yours enough times that he’s not just going to take your word, am I right?”_

_“Yes,” Davos grumbled._

_“Well, then, you’re going to need my help at least as much as Gendry’s, if not more,” Bella concluded.“It’s my family too, now.”_

_Davos let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan.“I had forgotten how much stubbornness is also a Baratheon trait,” he said.“Do you think they’re quite done in there yet?”_

_“Well, they’re both young and strong and haven’t fucked anyone else for about a month.I imagine they’re not actually done, although they may have reached a stopping place.You want me to go and check?”_

_“Well, I certainly don’t want to go in there,” Davos replied, making Bella giggle with the blush creeping up his cheeks._

_She sighed melodramatically. “I’ll save your poor eyes then,” she assured him before turning toward the tent._

_The music was thankfully still going enough to drown out the moans emanating from the tent. She waited until she heard a feminine gasp and a choked masculine groan. She looked in to find them both completely naked. Arya’s knees were pressed into Gendry’s ribcage and his arms rested on either side of her head, his face buried in the crook of her neck. His lips found hers and he kissed her softly, one hand tangling in her loosened hair. She returned his kiss with equal fervor, her small hands cupping his face._

_Bella couldn’t help the glimmer of mischief that shone in her eyes as she loudly cleared her throat. She sniggered at how quickly Gendry broke away from Arya, swearing to seven hells and grabbing any errant piece of clothing to preserve what was left of his and Arya’s modesty. Arya, unlike Gendry, seemed more amused than anything at the interruption and made no move to either hide herself or pull away from Gendry’s body._

_“What do you fucking want?” Gendry demanded through clenched teeth._

_“That’s a nice way to talk to the person who’s been protecting your very loud activity of late,” she told him, arms folded across her chest. “I could have done nothing and that Jon Snow could have discovered you with your face buried in his sister’s pussy.”_

_Arya snorted in what Bella thought to be a very unladylike manner while Gendry flushed deeply and said, “How do you know—”_

_“Because that’s how I found you, stupid.”_

_Arya snorted again with a grin while Gendry scowled. His expression didn’t manage to express anger, however, since he was also blushing deeply._

_“What do you fucking want?” he asked again, teeth clenched so tightly Bella was surprised they did not break._

_“I don’t want anything. Davos wants to talk to you about going to Storm’s End.”_

_“I’m not going to go to Storm’s End,” Gendry insisted._

_“Just listen to what he has to say,” Bella argued. “It’s not about the stupid lordship really, it’s about a plan to help people out of King’s Landing.”_

_“And how am I meant to do that?” he scoffed._

_“Well,” Bella began, her confidence starting to fade, “you would have to gather the Baratheon bannermen…”_

_“I’m_ not _going to do that.”_

_“Gendry,” Arya spoke for the first time since Bella entered. Her voice was quiet and her tone was sure. Bella watched as her brother’s eyes widened as he looked at her.It seemed quite clear that he had not heard her say his name that way in a very long time._

_“Just listen to what Davos has to say at least,” Arya told him._

_Something passed between them silently before Gendry moved to grab his clothes.Before he revealed himself completely he glared up at Bella._

_“What? It’s not like I haven’t seen it before,” she teased._

_Gendry grumbled before roughly pulling on his pants and throwing a shirt on over his head. Bella did do him the courtesy of looking away as he dressed and caught Arya staring at her. Bella returned the other woman’s gaze without hesitation as Gendry pulled on his boots and stepped out of the tent._

_Bella raised an eyebrow in equal parts surprise and admiration as Arya stood from the pile of clothes without bothering to preserve her modesty in the slightest. Arya went to the wash basin and used a cloth to clean Gendry’s spend from between her legs._

_“I know this is an oversight since I grew up in a whorehouse, but I don’t have any moon tea for you,” Bella told her._

_“It’s not an issue,” Arya said, a slight hint of darkness in her voice._

_“If you say so,” Bella said, eyeing the scars on her abdomen. She wasn’t a maester, but she supposed an injury like that could prevent pregnancy._

_“Gendry found you in a whorehouse?” Arya asked, her tone almost dangerously conversational as she pulled a tunic over her head._

_Bella smirked. “I suppose that wouldn’t have come up with all the other things coming up this evening,” she said eliciting a smile from the other woman as she pulled on her trousers. “He didn’t come in looking for a fuck, if that’s worrying you.”_

_“It’s not,” Arya replied shortly, sitting on the cot to pull on her boots. “I have no claim on him. Not then, not now really.”_

_“That’s a tremendous amount of shit that just came out of your mouth,” Bella told her. “Your claim on him is absolute.”_

_Arya raised an eyebrow. “How do you know anything about us?”_

_“He looked very sad when he came in out of the blizzard,” Bella recounted. “I like sad men. I get to make them happy for a little while. Gives a difficult life some small meaning. I barely had that lovely cock of his in my hands when my boast about being the bastard daughter of the old king made it’s way into his mind and he jumped away from me as though I’d turned into a frog. I don’t think he would have gone through with it even if I hadn’t said anything. Later, he told me about you. He loves you. I think he’s stupid for it, but I’ve heard that’s an opinion we both share.”_

_Arya pulled on her jerkin and began lacing it together. Outside the tent, Gendry angrily said, “It’s not what I want!”_

_“You wanted it well enough when Daenerys offered it to you,” Davos argued._

_“I thought—it doesn’t matter what I thought. It’s not what I want anymore.”_

_“And what, exactly has changed your mind in the last few hours, pray tell?”_

_Gendry sputtered and lowered his voice. Bella looked up to find a guilty expression on Arya’s face.She met the other woman’s eyes and said, “You know what the biggest difference between you highborns and us lowborns? You get a choice. You can run away from your responsibilities and privileges and become a beggar on the streets if that is what you desire. We can’t do that, though. If we tried, we would die. We can only move if someone lets us. I already told you, you have him, absolutely. What are you going to_ let _him do?”_

_Arya fastened her sword belt around her waist and pushed past Bella toward the tent flap. Bella followed her and watched as Arya put her hand on Gendry’s neck and drew his attention from his hushed argument with Davos. “You should go. There are people you could help. That’s what you should do,” she told him._

_Gendry looked pained. “Arya, I meant what I said,” he told her through gritted teeth. “It won’t be worth anything if you’re not—”_

_“After,” she cut him off, “if there is an after.”_

_“Arya—”_

_“You should go and help the people you grew up around,” she said, her thumb gently stroking his cheek. “I’ll finish my list. And then after, we’ll…we’ll choose what’s right.”_

_“Are you fucking done yet?”_

_They all turned to look at the Hound who spat out a chicken bone at their stares. Bella bit her lip to keep from laughing while Gendry glared at him and Arya just rolled her eyes. Bella watched out of the corner of her eye as Arya pulled Gendry down to kiss him hard on the mouth before abruptly letting go and walking away._

_“You work the twat out of your system,” the Hound asked her._

_Arya looked back as Gendry started to listen to what Davos was saying. “No. I don’t think I did.”_

_Bella smiled at the overheard words as she watched the odd pair move further away. Perhaps Arya Stark was not the cold little bitch she had pictured in her mind. Perhaps she was, after all, just as stupid and in love as Gendry. Bella certainly hoped she would get to witness whatever ‘after’ was._

* * *

The sun set late in the Stormlands during the summer. Regardless of the hour, however, Bella always watched the sunset from the top of the drum tower before returning to the family solar to work on her sewing or knitting. It was always her favorite way to end the day, even in the darkest of times.

She had stripped off her shoes and stockings and let her bare feet rest on the plush ottoman before the gentle fire in the hearth. A ‘proper’ lady wouldn’t have done such a thing, but Bella had no such pretensions toward propriety. In the early days, the lords and ladies of the Stormlands were equally perplexed at how improper their queen and their king’s sister were and in such different ways. But if a little impropriety was the price for stability and prosperity, the Stormlanders decided to overlook their scruples.

“You’re still up?”

Bella looked up from the skirt she was embroidering for Shireen to see Davos walking slowly into the room. The old man moved slower, and was a little more bent than he was when she had first met him, but his eyes and tongue and mind were just as sharp as ever.

“I’m always up at this time, as you know, because you are always up at this time,” she replied impishly.

“Aye, this is sadly very true,” Davos said, handing her a small scroll before settling into the chair across from hers. “A late raven came for you.”

Bella opened it and read her good-sister’s short sentences with a sense of growing dread. Her face must have betrayed her because Davos leaned forward and regarded her with concern as he gently said, “Bella, what does the note say?”

“Forecast of Snow. A fortnight or two. Be prepared. A.S,” she recited with a watery smile.

Davos’ brows knit together in confusion. “I know the Starks are always right in the end, but it wouldn’t snow in the—oh,” he said sitting back as Arya’s meaning hit him. “Are you-are you more concerned about seeing him again for yourself, or for Rhae?”

Bella sighed. Of course Davos would have sorted out the truth. He had probably known all along. “Jon’s life started to unravel the more people knew who his parents were. I didn’t want that for Rhaelle,” she explained.

“I understand that, Bella, truly I do. But the difference here is that Jon was never going to have the opportunity to know either of his true parents. Rhaelle still has the opportunity to meet her father, who, incidentally, is one of the best men I’ve ever known.”

“I know that, I do. But I don’t want the revelation to change her. More than that, I don’t want my daughter to hate me.

“Give your girl more credit,” Davos advised. “She inherited your wit after all, not her father’s.”

Bella chuckled as she closed her eyes against more tears. She would have to be strong. Winter was coming to the Stormlands.

**Author's Note:**

> Truth time: I don't have much of an idea where this story is going, but I have all these moments that I want to write about within this specific framework, so, not sure how much or how quickly I'll be updating.


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